Sunpower Corporation

Jane Manning

David D Smith

Ann P Waldhauer

Tim Dennis

Scott Harrington

Richard M Swanson

Denis De Ceuster

Peter John Cousins

Hsin-Chiao Luan

Peter Cousins

Genevieve A Solomon

Brenda Pagulayan Malgapu

Joseph Ramirez

Helen Liu

David Smith

Methods of fabricating emitter regions of solar cells are described. Methods of forming layers on substrates of solar cells, and the resulting solar cells, are also described.

Method of fabricating an emitter region of a solar cell

Methods of fabricating solar cells with tunnel dielectric layers are described. Solar cells with tunnel dielectric layers are also described.

Method of fabricating a solar cell with a tunnel dielectric layer

Methods of forming contacts for solar cells are described. In one embodiment, a method includes forming a silicon layer above a substrate, forming and patterning a solid-state p-type dopant source on the silicon layer, forming an n-type dopant source layer over exposed regions of the silicon layer and over a plurality of regions of the solid-state p-type dopant source, and heating the substrate to provide a plurality of n-type doped silicon regions among a plurality of p-type doped silicon regions.

Method of forming contacts for a back-contact solar cell

Method of fabricating solar cells with tunnel dielectric layers are described. Solar cells with tunnel dielectric layers are also described.

Methods of forming contacts for back-contact solar cells are described. In one embodiment, a method includes forming a thin dielectric layer on a substrate, forming a polysilicon layer on the thin dielectric layer, forming and patterning a solid-state p-type dopant source on the polysilicon layer, forming an n-type dopant source layer over exposed regions of the polysilicon layer and over a plurality of regions of the solid-state p-type dopant source, and heating the substrate to provide a plurality of n-type doped polysilicon regions among a plurality of p-type doped polysilicon regions.

In one embodiment, active diffusion junctions of a solar cell are formed by diffusing dopants from dopant sources selectively deposited on the back side of a wafer. The dopant sources may be selectively deposited using a printing method, for example. Multiple dopant sources may be employed to form active diffusion regions of varying doping levels. For example, three or four active diffusion regions may be fabricated to optimize the silicon/dielectric, silicon/metal, or both interfaces of a solar cell. The front side of the wafer may be textured prior to forming the dopant sources using a texturing process that minimizes removal of wafer material. Openings to allow metal gridlines to be connected to the active diffusion junctions may be formed using a self-aligned contact opening etch process to minimize the effects of misalignments.

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Woodside, CA, United States of America

Jane Manning