Back contact crystalline silicon solar cells and modules

Introduction
Presently, research and development of the photovoltaic (PV) industry is occurring at a
breathtaking pace. Primarily, this phenomenal growth of the PV industry is being driven by
subsidies in key markets, such as the renewable energy law (EEG) in Germany, feed-in tariffs in
several countries like Australia, Spain and so on. In order to reduce the production costs of PV,
new technologies and novel areas of PV cells such as thin film, organic solar cells and so forth
are being explored []. Yet, the silicon wafer based solar cell still holds the lion’s share in the
market in terms of highest dollar per peak watt.
In a typical silicon wafer solar cell (whether mono-crystalline or poly-crystalline), silicon
is the main ingredient of the structure. The emitter is located on the top and back surface. Finger
patterns form a metal grid on the top surface to carry the light generated current. The finger
layout consists of thin parallel interconnections (made from screen printing a silver paste over
the cells) running across the solar cells and is laid in such way as to reduce resistive and optical
losses. Those fingers are in turn connected to busbars which carry the collected current out to an
external circuit by means of highly conductive soldered tabs. In a typical module fabrication,
those cells are soldered in series by soldering such tabs from the top surface of one cell to the
rear surface of another cell. In this way, the voltage of each cell adds up to the other. The
stringing of these cells into a module can be achieved manually or by complex automated
equipment. The resistive losses from the overall module are increased even though the soldering
tabs are highly conductive. Even though increasing the thickness of the tab or the width of the
tab seem like viable alternatives to offset resistive losses, other issues such as thermal stresses
between the soldered interfaces and shadowing losses (the metallized finger patterns prevent
sunlight from reaching the solar cell) arise thus compromising the efficiency of the cells.
As a result, a new type of solar cell has been developed that has all the connective
terminals (positive and negative) behind the cells, thus reducing shadowing losses drastically and
improving efficiencies of the cells. Furthermore, such cells allow novel contacting technologies
to be developed thereby avoiding the tedious conventional way of soldering tabs from the front
of one cell to the rear surface of another. In this report, an outline of such technology will be
described along with the way these cells are implemented into modules.

Back contact solar cell

Although the industrial implementation of back contact solar cells seems relatively new, the back
contact cell originates from the work developed by Chapin et al. at Bell Labs in 1954 []. At the
time, the solar cell record efficiency was 6%. To date, there have been many designs of the back
contact cell technology in order to reduce the production costs and promote module efficiency.
Also, currently, industries like SunPower, Day4 and so on are currently producing back contact
wafer modules with competitive module efficiencies.
There are significant advantages tied to the back contact cell technology. Due to the fact
that all the interconnection circuitry is located behind the cell, there is reduced shading loss from
the cell. Literature reveals that front contacted cells have about 10% shadowing losses as
compared to back contact solar cells. Moreover, such technology increases the packing density
of the cells and therefore, overall efficiency increases. Furthermore, due to the positions of the
connective terminals, the module assembly is much easier as there is no need to run soldering
tabs from the front of one cell to another. Even though such process can be automated by
existing industry equipment, it is very costly and risks of damaging the cells and the soldered
joints are high. Since module assembly (stringing of cells, module encapsulation, layout of
aluminium frames around the module to protect it from mechanical damage, connection of
junction box to tap current out of the module and so on) accounts for about 50% of the finished
module cost, possible simplification of such assembly process through back contact solar cell
technology is very promising and cost effective.
Lastly, the back contact solar cell is aesthetically more pleasing than a conventional solar
cell due to its uniform dark colour and absence of circuitry on the front side. This makes it a
good candidate for building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV). Even though thin film solar cells
have an identical look and are flexible, they are less efficient. Hence, back contact modules still
hold better scope for BIPV. In the following section, some common types of back contact solar
cells are described together with their cell structures.

Types of back contact solar cells

In this section, some of the various types of back contact solar cells are covered with the primary
focus being on the inter-digitated back contact (IBC) and the emitter wrap-through (EWT) cells.
Due to their different cell structure, the starting materials for each particular type of cell vary
from each other. The back contact cells can be categorized into three diverse types, namely (a)
the metallisation wrap-through (MWT) (b) emitter wrap-through (EWT) and lastly the back-
junction solar cell.
The back contact cell which shows the most similarity to a conventional solar cell is the
metallisation wrap-through (MWT) cell. In this cell, the emitter is still located at the top surface
of the cell but some of the front metallisation patterns are shifted to the rear surface. The cell
structure is similar to shifting the busbars from the front surface to the rear surface of the cell.
These busbars are then electrically connected to the top fingers by conductive openings
throughout the cell structure.
The emitter wrap-through (EWT) cell is somewhat similar to the MWT cell as the emitter
is still located at the front surface of the cell. However, unlike the MWT cell which still
possesses some interconnections on top of the cell, the entire interconnection circuitry in a EWT
cell is located behind the cell. The contacts between the emitter on the front surface of the cell
and interconnects at the rear surface of the cell are maintained by electrical connections through
the substrate. This can be achieved by laser drilling holes throughout the cell and subsequent
electroplating of metal and so forth.
The back-junction cell is significantly different from its two other contenders (MWT and
EWT) because the cell is designed in such way that the emitter is located at the rear surface of
the cell together with the interconnection circuitry. As a result, there is no front grid metallisation
pattern that shadows the incident photons. In addition, since all metallisation patterns are located
behind the cell (for both emitter and base), the entire cell’s rear surface can be covered with
metal patterns to reduce resistive losses. In the other types of solar cells, a compromise needs to
be reached between metallisation coverage and shadowing losses.
Even though there are three different types of back contact solar cells, most of them are
broadly classified into two categories according to the way the carriers are collected at the
junctions. These are namely the back-junction, also the inter-digitated back contact (IBC) cell
and the emitter wrap-through cell (EWT). In the IBC, carrier collection occurs only at the rear
surface of the cell whereas in the EWT, carrier collection can be effected from both sides of the
cell. Carriers can then flow from the front to the rear surface through metallised patterns going
through the substrate.
The IBC cells have better efficiencies than the EWT cells but they require higher quality
starting materials such as the FZ-silicon (float-zone silicon) or very thin substrates. Since carrier
collection occurs at the back of the cell, the cell structure requires a high ratio of minority-carrier
diffusion length within the bulk, L over the cell thickness, W together with a very low front
surface recombination velocity because photogeneration of carriers occur at the front surface of
the cell. Otherwise, as soon as the carriers are generated, they will recombine. The distance
travelled by a minority carrier from any point in the cell to the junction must be much less than
the diffusion length. The manufacturing conditions of these cells are very stringent to retain the
low front surface recombination velocities as well as the high minority-carrier lifetime. In
addition, front surface texturization of the cells is very important for maximizing light trapping
and passivating the front surface, overall increasing the open-circuit voltage, Voc of the cell. The
texturization process is conducted either mechanically or chemically by automated equipment.
Low front surface recombination can be achieved by depositing high quality thermal oxides or
passivating dielectrics. Furthermore, the back surface of the cell is also made highly reflective to
reflect the photons reaching the surface towards the front for carrier generation. The back surface
is usually passivated with thermal oxide because of the presence of regions with different
polarities.
In a EWT cell, carrier collection can occur both at the front and the back of the cell
because the emitter is still located near the front surface. Holes are laser drilled throughout the
wafer to connect the front and back surfaces of the cell. These holes are then filled with metal.
Contacts on the back surface are usually spaced in a periodic manner. Due to its design, the EWT
cell does not require high quality starting materials like the IBC cell. It can be manufactured
using lower quality silicon and hence, is more cost effective. Since carrier collection can occur at
both the front and back surfaces, the cell does not require a high diffusion length material as
well. Furthermore the collection efficiency of such cells is high since carrier collection occurs at
both surfaces. However, since there are still some contacting gridlines on top of the surface, the
EWT cells need some level of trade-off between front metallisation and series resistance as front
contacted cells do. In addition, the front metallisation patterns also contribute to some shadowing
losses.
EWT cells can be highly efficient if properly designed to maintain a high diffusion
length. If the thickness of the cell is similar to the diffusion length of the device, then the
photocurrent can be directly collected by the rear junction without travelling through the metal
holes. If the diffusion length is much greater than the device thickness, then there is no need to
have holes as interconnects. This is a significant advantage for EWT cells as the hole drilling
process makes the fabrication process more tedious. The forthcoming portion explains some of
the technological processes of implementing back contact cells.

Module manufacturing
Even though it seems that cell fabrication is the most tedious part of a completed solar module,
the various steps during a module assembly play vital roles in producing an efficient solar
module. The module assembly process accounts for about 50% of the cost of a finished module.
Without properly designed and optimized module fabrication steps, even highly efficient solar
cells may be ineffective if the overall module efficiency is low. As such, sometimes cell
fabrication steps have to be in line with the module fabrication steps to make an overall efficient
and durable solar module.
There are several stages in a module fabrication process. Some of these are automated by
complex machinery while some are manually performed by skilled labour. A typical module
assembly comprises of individual cell tabbing (soldering highly conductive ribbons along the
busbars), stringing (soldering the front surface of one cell to the rear surface of a neighbouring
one), string layout, module encapsulation using glass, encapsulant and backsheet (this process
protects the cells from its working environment (humidity, temperature etc)), framing the module
with aluminium to prevent mechanical damage, attaching junction boxes behind the module to
tap out current and so forth.
Since the structure of back contact cells differ from a conventional solar cell, different
module fabrication processes have to be adopted to assemble them into modules. Yet, having all
the interconnection circuitry behind the cells does not imply that the module assembly is much
easier. Factors like the size and location of contact pads need to be meticulously chosen because
all circuit connections are behind the cells and hence, risks of short circuiting the cells are high.
Furthermore, reliability of the interconnections of the overall module assembly have to be
considered to meet industry standards. After production, the modules are subjected to standard
industry tests such as thermal cycling, damp heat test, humidity freeze test and so forth for about
1000 hours to show their reliability and durability.
To date, different approaches pertaining to module interconnections have been invoked for
back contact solar cells. One such approach is monolithic integration of the cells, similar to the
IC industry. This method eliminates the tedious process of stringing cells one after the other by
forming the interconnections directly on the backsheet. As a result, the number of steps during
the module assembly can be decreased to a vast extent. Also, this method solves the issue of
movement of the cell interconnects during lamination of the module because interconnects are
located on the backsheet. Furthermore, it has been shown that the encapsulant can flow more
easily during the lamination process when interconnects are on the backsheet, thereby enclosing
the cells well within the ethylene vinyl acetate encapsulant (EVA). The interconnects are made
from bonded metal foil or other conductive material like silver. Besides, interconnections can
also be realized through the use of thermosetting acrylic-based conductive epoxies or silver-filled
conductive epoxies and subsequent curing. Those epoxies have excellent electrical and
mechanical properties but are more expensive than the soldering ribbons. Moreover, with these
epoxies, the module assembly process can be designed in such way as to cure these adhesives
and laminate the module in one single step. One of the drawbacks during the module assembly of
back-contact solar cells is that additional care has to taken such that the cells are not shunted
during the final process.

Industrial production of back contact solar modules

As the solar industry is booming, the industrial trend is more inclined towards manufacturing
solar cells on larger and thinner substrates to increase throughput and eventually make solar cells
more affordable. The earliest industrial back contact solar cell goes back to the metallisation
wrap-through cell which Spectrolab developed for pilot line production. The aim of this project
was to deliver large area low cost solar cells with a low manufacturing cost.
Likewise, in 2003, at Photovoltech NV (a spin-off from IMEC) both conventional and
MWT solar cells made their way to pilot line production. Their unique texturization scheme gave
rise to their MAXIS BC+ (as coined by the company) back contact solar cell with about 17% cell
efficiency.
At SunPower, the back-junction solar cell technology brought over from Stanford
University gave rise to highly efficient solar cells with an efficiency distribution ranging from
20% to 22%. However, those cells required several manufacturing steps and hence, the
production volume was rather low. Since then, SunPower has revised their production processes
and have recently attained a world record cell efficiency of 24.2% at their manufacturing plant in
Philippines. As confirmed by U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Lab
(NREL), this is the new world record efficiency for large area silicon wafer solar cells.
Advent Solar, now bought by Applied Materials, previously commercialized their
technology about emitter wrap-through (EWT) solar cells. The monolithic integration of the
module assembly using conventional production processes, together with significantly improved
aspects in the module design such as lower series resistance, reduced wafer thickness and so
forth lead to EWT cells with about 16.9% efficiency. However, in November 2009, the industry
closed its manufacturing site and the intellectual property has now been acquired by Applied
Materials, which is also a very big player in the solar industry.
In 2009, Day4 Energy Inc., a Canadian solar module manufacturer, has expanded their
patented Day4 Electrode Technology to back contact solar cells. Their novel contacting scheme
eliminates several steps in the module assembly, hence increasing the yield of their process.
Their technology boasts a polymer matrix embedded with specially coated copper wires which in
turn are coated with a proprietary low melting point alloy that gives way to a low resistance
contact with the solar cells. In this way, they are able to manufacture solar modules with higher
performance and longer lifetime at a lower cost.
The Sunweb® technology, developed by Solland Solar is the first to fully dedicate their
technology to back-contact solar cells. Using their proprietary In-Laminated Soldering (ILS)
technology, the module has low resistive losses and also allows a higher packing density of the
cells. Furthermore their technology uses very thin silicon wafers together with some other smart
features in their design. In addition, their unique contacting scheme is visually very appealing
and makes it a perfect candidate for building integrated photovoltaics. Recently, Solland Solar
has signed a partnership agreement with SCHOTT Solar for large scale manufacturing of back
contact solar modules. In October 2010, SCHOTT Solar has recently developed a novel batch
production technique for multi-crystalline solar cells with 17.6% module efficiency (the highest
multi-crystalline module efficiency in the global market so far).
As witnessed above, several industries and spin-off companies are trying to
commercialize their technologies since there is a strong demand for renewable energy
production. In some cases, some industries are incorporating back-contact solar cells as part of
their pilot line while others have dedicated their entire technologies to back contact solar
modules. The ones listed in this report are currently the main ones dealing in back contact solar
modules and are thus not limited to only these few.

Conclusion
Back contact solar cells hold promising scope for producing more efficient solar cells due to
their inherent advantages like low shading losses, innovative module assembly approaches and
so forth. Furthermore, back contact solar cells are very suitable to meet the demands of higher
output voltages, especially where the surface area is low. As compared to other solar cells like
thin film and so forth, back contact solar cells produce much higher power. As observed by the
growing number of industries moving back contact solar cells to pilot line production, it is
beyond doubt that such types of cells will have a bigger share of the photovoltaic market in the
near future. At the time of writing, commercial back contact modules with about 21.6% module
efficiency are already in the market and huge research is being conducted in every design aspect
of solar cells to increase their efficiencies. This ranges from textured glass, encapsulants like
ionomer, EVA and so on to soldering ribbons which now possess light trapping mechanism.
As discussed in this report, having all the interconnection circuitry behind the solar cell
does not automatically guarantee an easier module assembly. Even though this type of
technology opens up newer concepts of module assembly, the process is still challenging as risk
of shunting is very high. Nevertheless, with appropriate ways of defining and contacting these
regions, such challenges can be overcome making the module overall efficient and cost worthy.

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