This solution was developed especially for the upgrade of existing cell production lines. An improved cell rear side with an AIOx/SiNy dielectric stack enables this progress without "selective emitter" technology. 20.1 % is one of the highest efficiencies worldwide reported for industrial type silicon solar cells with screen-printed metallization.
Singulus offers for the upgrade of a standard production line three additional process steps. Before coating, the rear side is smoothed with a wet-chemical polish in a LINEA II Single Side Polish Etch machine. Singulus offers for R&D single lanes and for high throughput up to 10 lanes. The complete dielectric passivation layer is deposited without vacuum breach in a PECVD-tool (Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor deposition) with the brand name SINGULAR XP.
Singulus XP uses ICP (Inductively Coupled Plasma) process and offers lowest operational costs due to high utilization of consumables. For the rear side contacts through a laser process, SINGULUS is closely cooperating with a partner. With the integration of these additional production steps into existing manufacturing lines, solar- cells with an efficiency gain of about 1 % can be achieved.
The Institute for Solar Energy Research Hameln (ISFH) increased the conversion efficiency of screen-printed silicon solar cells in cooperation with Singulus from industry typical 18.5 % to a record value of 20.1 %. This was independently confirmed by the photovoltaics calibration laboratory of the Fraunhofer ISE (CalLab).
