Surface treatment for multi-crystalline silicon wafer sliced by diamond wire saw

Silicon wafers sliced with diamond wire saw and SiC slurry are compared in this study. Diamond wire saw have high slicing speed and the cost is lower than slurry cut process. However it is not suitable for multi-crystalline wafer slicing process. In this study, a surface treatment process was used on the diamond wire cut multi-crystalline silicon wafer. With the modification of wafer surface, the surface quality and solar cell characteristics could be improved. The energy conversion efficiency was increased from 17.7% to 18.4%, which is comparable to the solar cell from conventional slurry cut. Furthermore, there is a decline in wafering cost.