Solar cells with mesh-structured emitter

The mesh-structured emitter solar cell (MESC) is introduced as a novel solar cell processing scheme. By the formation of inverted pyramids or microgrooves on a wafer with a homogeneous heavy phosphorus diffusion, a mesh of highly conducting emitter lines is formed. Using this technique, the lateral conductivity of the emitter can be increased, keeping the emitter dark saturation current at a low level. The high phosphorus surface concentration results in a low contact resistance even for screen-printed contacts. Thus, this technique is ideal for solar cells with screen-printed contacts, because the finger spacing of the front contact can be extended, resulting in smaller shadowing losses. Also the processing scheme of high-efficiency solar cells can be simplified, because the formation of the surface texturization and the locally deep diffused emitter can be combined in one step. The first cells with a mesh-structured emitter, evaporated front contacts and local ohmic rear contacts have shown efficien ies up to 21.1%. Lifetime test structures have been used to determine a low dark saturation current of 58 fA cm−2 for the mesh-structured emitter, although the structure is not yet optimized.