Intense Pulsed Light in Back End Processing of Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells

Intense pulsed light (IPL) is capable of entirely replacing thermal annealing (curing and contact formation) within back end processing of silicon heterojunction solar cells. In order to demonstrate this, full-size silicon heterojunction (SHJ) cells with IPL-processed screen-printed metal contacts are evaluated. Such cells reach conversion efficiencies of up to 23.0%. On average, IPL-annealed SHJ cells outperform their thermally treated pendants by 0.3-0.4%abs, in particular because of higher open-circuit voltages and fill factors. Moreover, IPL offers high throughput and low footprint. This results in a cost of ownership reduction potential of 6%rel compared to state-of-the-art thermal annealing.