The new materials include dielectrics and dopants, which are commonly used in the mass production of semiconductors.
“Honeywell continues to innovate to apply proven semiconductor and materials technology to the photovoltaic industry,” said Dmitry Shashkov, business director of Honeywell Electronic Materials. “Honeywell’s dopant and dielectric materials will help manufacturers of crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells apply low-cost, high-performance industrial manufacturing processes to new solar cell designs tested in R&D labs.”
Dopants are chemicals that alter the electrical properties of silicon and can be selectively applied to change the electrical properties of specific parts of solar cells. Dielectrics are chemicals that act as electrical insulators, preventing the flow of electric current through certain areas of the photovoltaic cell. These dielectric materials have been designed to provide other benefits, such as a passivation layer to prevent harmful recombination effects, a diffusion barrier to prevent unwanted diffusion of dopants into certain regions, and a masking material.
Honeywell has engineered these new materials with extremely low impurity levels, as impurities can degrade the PV quality of the cell. The structure of the c-Si cells enabled by Honeywell's new materials includes a selective emitter, back passivation, a contact point, and boron cells on the back surface. Furthermore, Honeywell's dopants will allow for the widespread adoption of n-Si substrates instead of the current p-Si substrates, eliminating the detrimental effects of light-induced degradation inherent in p-Si. These new materials can be applied to silicon wafers using low-cost, high-throughput methods such as screen printing and inkjet printing.
