SNM: Scalable Surface Corrugation of Silicon Surfaces for Enhanced Light Trapping in Solar Cells

SNM：硅表面的可扩展表面波纹，用于增强太阳能电池中的光捕获

• 批准号: 1635334
• 负责人: Sang Eon Han
• 金额: $ 95万
• 依托单位: University of New Mexico
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-09-01 至 2021-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1635334&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SNM; Scalable; Surface; Corrugation; Silicon

Solar photovoltaics market is growing rapidly on a global scale. Notwithstanding the rapid growth, the cost of installed photovoltaic solar energy system must be further reduced for a wide distribution of solar power usage in the marketplace. The difficulty has been to reduce, by a significant degree, both the material cost and the "soft cost", such as transportation and installation of solar photovoltaic modules. Addressing this market challenge, this Scalable NanoManufacturing (SNM) award will provide manufacturing solutions to reduce the material cost by first making use of thin, flexible crystalline silicon substrates, as crystalline silicon accounts for as much as 30-40 percent of a typical solar module cost. The use of thin substrates would also reduce the soft cost by enabling cells to be supported on a lightweight flexible platform. Lightweight translates to reduced transportation and installation costs. While the cost benefits are clear, maintaining the same photovoltaic efficiency from thin silicon solar cells requires significantly improved light trapping and absorption within the thin layer. The technical solution to be explored is to use periodic, nanoscale surface features with reduced symmetry to effectively couple the sunlight into the underlying silicon substrate. A manufacturable, cost-effective, high-throughput process will be developed to fabricate such nanostructures on thin silicon films. This new process will provide uniformity over a wafer-scale, bridging six orders of magnitude in length scale. The project will also help the public appreciate alternative energy sources by developing educational tools using web-based immersive interactive visualization.Fabricating nanoscale features uniformly over a wafer scale poses significant engineering challenges. Various lithographic techniques exist today to define submicron features. However, the success of any one technique will depend on its large-scale performance and manufacturing cost. For instance, the conventional deep-UV optical steppers are highly suitable for sub-micron light-trapping features in solar cells but are overly expensive for wafer-scale applications. The research team will develop processes to scale up phase-mask-based interference lithography, where a coherent beam is projected on a pre-patterned grating mask, and the diffracted plane waves from the mask interfere with each other to make periodic patterns. The scale-up lithography processes will also involve wet etching steps to fabricate efficient light-trapping structures on thin silicon solar cells. A multiscale, multiphase transport and reaction model of the wet etch process will be developed to solve the scale-up engineering challenge. The photovoltaic characteristics of the large-area solar cells fabricated by the developed processes will be investigated on a device level.

太阳能光伏市场在全球范围内迅速增长。 尽管增长迅速，但必须进一步降低安装光伏太阳能系统的成本，以在市场上广泛分布太阳能使用。 困难在于大幅度降低材料成本和“软成本”，如运输和安装太阳能光伏组件。 为了应对这一市场挑战，该可扩展纳米制造（SNM）奖项将提供制造解决方案，通过首先使用薄的柔性晶体硅衬底来降低材料成本，因为晶体硅占典型太阳能组件成本的30- 40%。 薄基板的使用还将通过使电池能够被支撑在轻质柔性平台上来降低软成本。 重量轻意味着降低了运输和安装成本。 虽然成本效益是显而易见的，但要保持薄硅太阳能电池的相同光伏效率，需要显著改善薄层内的光捕获和吸收。 待探索的技术解决方案是使用周期性的、对称性降低的纳米级表面特征，以有效地将阳光耦合到下面的硅衬底中。 一个可制造的，具有成本效益的，高吞吐量的过程将被开发，以制造这种纳米结构的薄硅膜。 这种新工艺将在晶圆级上提供均匀性，在长度尺度上跨越六个数量级。 该项目还将通过使用基于网络的沉浸式交互式可视化开发教育工具，帮助公众了解替代能源。在晶圆级均匀制造纳米级特征带来了重大的工程挑战。 现今存在各种光刻技术来限定亚微米特征。 然而，任何一种技术的成功都将取决于其大规模性能和制造成本。 例如，传统的深UV光学步进器非常适合于太阳能电池中的亚微米光捕获特征，但是对于晶片级应用来说过于昂贵。 该研究小组将开发工艺来扩大基于相位掩模的干涉光刻，其中相干光束投射在预图案化的光栅掩模上，并且掩模的衍射平面波相互干涉以形成周期性图案。 按比例放大的光刻工艺还将涉及湿蚀刻步骤，以在薄硅太阳能电池上制造有效的光捕获结构。 一个多尺度，多相传输和反应模型的湿法刻蚀工艺将被开发，以解决放大工程的挑战。 大面积太阳能电池的光伏特性的开发过程中制造的设备水平上进行了研究。

项目成果

Dopant Diffusion through Selective Surface Regions to Improve Efficiency in Micro/Nano Textured Thin Solar Cells

通过选择性表面区域的掺杂剂扩散以提高微/纳米纹理薄太阳能电池的效率

• DOI: 10.1109/pvsc40753.2019.8981379
• 发表时间: 2019
• 期刊: 2019 IEEE 46th Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC
• 作者: Han, Seok Jun;Han, Sang M.;Han, Sang Eon
• 通讯作者: Han, Sang Eon

Elements of a design theory of nano-viral messages: a case study of #solar nanovirals

纳米病毒信息设计理论的要素：案例研究

• DOI: 10.1080/15228053.2019.1627717
• 发表时间: 2019
• 期刊: Journal of Information Technology Case and Application Research
• 作者: Flor, Nick V.

Diffraction-grating beam splitter, interferometric-lithography nanopatterning with a multilongitudinal-mode diode laser

衍射光栅分束器，使用多纵模二极管激光器进行干涉光刻纳米图案化

• DOI: 10.1116/6.0001377
• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology B
• 影响因子: 1.4
• 作者: Sasidharan, Vineeth;Neumann, Alexander;Brueck, S. R.
• 通讯作者: Brueck, S. R.

Mass Transfer Limited KOH Etching in Crystalline Silicon using a Confinement Mask

使用限制掩模对晶体硅进行传质限制 KOH 蚀刻

• DOI: 10.1149/2162-8777/ab8063
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology
• 影响因子: 2.2
• 作者: Tjiptowidjojo, Kristianto;Han, Seok Jun;Han, Sang Eon;Han, Sang M.;Schunk, P. Randall
• 通讯作者: Schunk, P. Randall

Symmetry-breaking nanostructures on crystalline silicon for enhanced light trapping in thin film solar cells

• DOI: 10.1364/oe.24.0a1586
• 发表时间: 2016-12-26
• 期刊: OPTICS EXPRESS
• 影响因子: 3.8
• 作者: Han, Seok Jun;Ghosh, Swapnadip;Han, Sang Eon
• 通讯作者: Han, Sang Eon