Kerfless exfoliated thin crystalline Si wafers with Al metallization layers for solar cells

We report on a kerfless exfoliation approach to further reduce the costs of crystalline silicon photovoltaics making use of evaporated Al as a double functional layer. The Al serves as the stress inducing element to drive the exfoliation process and can be maintained as a rear contacting layer in the solar cell after exfoliation. The 50–70 µm thick exfoliated Si layers show effective minority carrier lifetimes around 180 µs with diffusion lengths of 10 times the layer thickness. We analyze the thermo-mechanical properties of the Al layer by x-ray diffraction analysis and investigate its influence on the exfoliation process. We evaluate the approach for the implementation into solar cell production by determining processing limits and estimating cost advantages of a possible solar cell design route. The Al–Si bilayers are mechanically stable under processing conditions and exhibit a moderate cost savings potential of 3–36% compared to other c-Si cell concepts.