In order to decrease the consumption of reagents and silicon during removal of surface contamination before silicon texturing in solar cell manufacturing industry, a new low-cost surface treatment approach of electrochemical cleaning technique(ECT) is reported. In this technique, a powerful oxidizing electrolyte was obtained from the electrochemical reaction on Boron-doped Diamond(BDD) electrodes, and applied during removal of surface contaminations on silicon wafer surfaces. The slightly polished monocrystalline silicon surfaces after cleaning were compared with the ones of primal silicon wafers. The measurement results show that ECT is quite efficient in removing NaCl and organic contaminants. After cleaning, the contrast test was conducted for the textured silicon wafers with/without pre-treatment(polish) separately. The results show that the size of pyramids on the surface without traditional polishing process is homogeneous and smaller than 4μm, and the average surface reflectance is much lower in the wavelength range from 400nm to 800nm. Therefore, the new technique can save silicon material, and effectively avoid optical losses for improving photoconversion effect of solar cells.
The diameter of Czochralski (Cz) sapphire crystals is 50 mm. The sapphire substrates were lapped by using diamond powders and polished by chemical mechanical polishing(CMP) method using alkali slurry with SiO2 abrasive. After obtaining the smooth surfaces, the chemical etching experiments were processed by using fused KOH and NaOH etchants at different temperature for different times. The dislocation was observed by means of optical microscope and scanning electron microscope. The clear and stable contrast images of sample etching pits were observed. On the whole, the dislocation density is about 104?105 cm?2. Comparing the results under the conditions of different etchants, temperatures and times during the etching proceeding, it was found that the optimal condition for dislocation displaying is etching 15 min with fused KOH at 290 ℃. At the same time, the formation of the etch pits and the reducing method of dislocation density were also discussed.
