The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 24, 1997
Filed:
Nov. 22, 1995
Daniel L Meier, Pittsburgh, PA (US);
Ebara Solar, Inc., Large, PA (US);
Abstract
An improved solar cell design and method of fabrication that primarily uses two materials, n-type doped silicon and aluminum to form a p-n alloy junction back contact solar cell. The aluminum alloy junctions are placed on the back (unilluminated) side of the cell, thereby combining the desirable features of aluminum (as a dopant, contact metal and light reflector), with the advantages of a back contact cell. The cell design and method of fabrication includes such features as surface texturing, front and back surface field minority carrier mirrors, surface passivation using oxidation layers, use of Al contacts as light reflectors, intrinsic protection against reverse bias due to contiguous n.sup.+ and p.sup.+ regions, and an improved bus bar contact design suitable for interconnecting cells using a surface mount technology. An improved method of ohmic contact formation uses a self-alignment technique for forming the ohmic contacts.