Solar cell production have drawn and retained the interest of researchers and industries for future

due to their remarkable properties as well as their manifold application in source of renewable
power generation. Surface texturing is very significant in solar cells [2] as it plays role in the light
trapping. Texture is introduced in order to reduce reflection with the help of multiple internal
reflections that increases the probability for reflected light (photons) to bounce back into the silicon
wafer surface rather than reflected out to the surrounding air and thus, improving cells conversion
efficiency. But as reflectivity is decreased, it give birth to a new problem from manufacturing point
of view. It becomes difficult to measure surface topography with both contact based profiler and
non-contact optical techniques as the coarse wafers having pyramidal structures of generally 3-8
m are highly absorptive.
In this paper, authors had used p-type Czochralski silicon wafer (Cz-Si) on which 4-sided
pyramidal structure is textured using non-alcoholic chemical etching formulation (shown in
Appendix).They used a new optical metrological technique presented in the paper to measure
surface texture on solar cell wafers and compared the results with SEM imaging. Authors presented
their new technique which utilizes Zeta-20 3D imaging and metrology microscope with 2-70 nm
resolution and for results calculation, a special software had been utilized that is solar pyramid
analysis software. Zeta-20 generates 3D true color images by first acquiring number of images at
various heights and then, only picking the surface points which are best in focus for a particular
height [4]. Zeta microscope uses a unique optical design that enables a height resolution which is
smaller than the depth of focus.
In the experiment, group of wafers were used in which some are left intact where others were
coated with Silicon nitride (Si3N4). The wafers were measured using Zeta 20 and analyzed using
solar pyramid software and then, results were compared with images of SEM in figure 3 [1]. These
wafers were allowed to go through varying etch bath life and etching time. The pyramids formed
on these wafers are measured using the new technique and it was found that the exposure time of
above process increases the size of pyramid figure 4[1]. Whereas wafers subjected to additives,
also affects the pyramid size.
During average etching time of 20 minutes, the optimal size and coverage of pyramids were
achieved for final solar performance and it was observed that surface has minimum reflectivity.
As etching period was increased, it was seen that height of pyramids were decreased due to
formation of smaller micro-pyramid. The use of Zeta-20 also enables to calculate surface area ratio
with the change of time. Thus, this technique gives a major advantage to solar industry that it can
calculate and monitor the measurements so that the process conditions can be optimized.
Thus, it can be concluded that this technique is cost effective optical metrology tool which is fast
and can be used as production monitoring and as process development tool whose results can be
seen to correlate well with SEM.



References:
[1] V. Velidandla, Jim Xu, Zhen Hou Texture process monitoring in solar cell manufacturing
using optical metrology Applied Materials, 3535 Garrett Drive, Santa Clara, CA 95054, USA
[2] M. Hofmann, J. Rentsch, Dry plasma processing for industrial crystalline silicon solar cell
production The European physical jouranal applied physics 52, 1 (2010) Germany
[3] V. Velidandla, Ben Garland, Automated process metrology in solar cell manufacturing
Zeta instruments, San Jose, CA, USA
[4] K.S. Sumana, Effect of rotation speed and time on the surface structure of CeO2 thin films
prepared by sol-gel spin coating technique Volume 01, Issue 04
[5] K. Wijekoon et al., Production Ready Novel Texture Etching Process for Fabrication of
Single Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells, 35th IEEE PVSC, 2010, pp 3635 -3641
[6] J. D. Hilton et al., Progress in Photovoltaic Research and Applications, 4, 435, 1996
[7] http://www.pveducation.org/pvcdrom/design/surface-texturing



Appindex:

A square based pyramid which forms the surface of an appropriately textured crystalline silicon
solar cell [7].