The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a photovoltaic device comprising: —forming a porous first conducting layer on one side of a porous insulating substrate, —coating the first conducting layer with a layer of grains of a doped semiconducting material to form a structure, —performing a first heat treatment of the structure to bond the grains to the first conducting layer, —forming electrically insulating layers on surfaces of the first conducting layer, —forming a second conducting layer on an opposite side of the porous insulating substrate, —applying a charge conducting material onto the surfaces of the grains, inside pores of the first conducting layer, and inside pores of the insulating substrate, and—electrically connecting the charge conducting material to the second conducting layer.

History of commercial production of solar cells made from polysilicon material (E.sub.ff =15 -17%) and from amorphous silicon (Eff = 9 - 12%) has accumulated understanding of deficiencies and limitations of these solar cells. The present design combines following technical requirements: a) ability to harvest energy from widest part of sun spectrum; b) offer highest values of absorption coefficient for photons of the selected part of sun spectrum; c) ensure highest efficiency of conversion of incident photons into electron-hole pairs or photocarriers while ensuring lowest recombination rate; d) The simplicity of fabrication and low cost of mass production.

An article composed of sintered particles is produced by depositing ligand-containing particles on a substrate, then scanning the substrate with an electron beam that generates sufficient surface and subsurface heating to substantially eliminate the ligands and melt or sinter the particles into a cohesive film with superior charge carrier properties. The particles are sintered or melted together to form a polycrystalline layer that is substantially ligand-free to form, for example, a film such as a continuous polycrystalline film. The scanning operation is conducted so as to heat treat a controllably localized region at and below a surface of the particles by selecting a rate of deposited energy at the region to exceed a rate of conduction away from the substrate.

Provided are a method of manufacturing a solar cell, including a polycrystalline silicon layer forming operation of forming a polycrystalline silicon layer containing a first dopant on a back surface of a semiconductor substrate formed of a single crystal silicon material including a base region, a front texturing operation of texturing a front surface of the semiconductor substrate and simultaneously removing the polycrystalline silicon layer formed on the front surface of the semiconductor substrate, a second conductive region forming operation of forming a second conductive region by diffusing a second dopant on the front surface of the semiconductor substrate, a passivation layer forming operation of forming a first passivation layer on the polycrystalline silicon layer formed on the back surface of the semiconductor substrate and forming a second passivation layer on the second conductive region of the front surface of the semiconductor substrate, and an electrode forming operation of forming a first electrode connected to the polycrystalline silicon layer through the first passivation layer and forming a second electrode layer at the second conductive region through the second passivation layer.

A poly-crystalline silicon ingot having a bottom and defining a vertical direction includes a plurality of silicon grains grown in the vertical direction, in which the plurality of the silicon grains have at least three crystal orientations; and a nucleation promotion layer comprising a plurality of chips and chunks of poly-crystalline silicon on the bottom, wherein the poly-crystalline silicon ingot has a defect density at a height ranging from about 150 mm to about 250 mm of the poly-crystalline silicon ingot that is less than 15%.

A solar cell includes a silicon substrate, an emitter area formed on a front surface of the silicon substrate, a tunneling oxide layer formed on a back surface of the silicon substrate, a back surface field area formed on the tunneling oxide layer and formed of a polycrystalline silicon layer, a back passivation film formed on the back surface field area and having an opening, and a back electrode connected to the back surface field area via the opening.

A method of manufacturing a solar cell can include forming a silicon oxide film on a semiconductor substrate and successively exposing the silicon oxide film to a temperature in a range of 570° C. to 700° C. to anneal the silicon oxide film.

A method for assembling a solar module structure comprises patterning a frontside and a backside of a double-sided printed circuit board coated with metallic foils according to desired frontside and backside interconnect layouts; applying a first coating layer to the rear side of a plurality of three-dimensional thin-film solar cells, each three-dimensional thin-film solar cell comprising: a three-dimensional thin-film solar cell substrate comprising emitter junction regions and doped base regions; emitter metallization and base metallization regions; the three-dimensional thin-film solar cell substrate comprising a plurality of single-aperture unit cells; placing the three-dimensional thin-film solar cells on the frontside of the double-sided printed circuit board; preparing a solar module assembly, comprising: a glass layer; a top encapsulant layer; the plurality of three-dimensional thin-film solar cells on the frontside of the double-sided printed circuit board; a rear encapsulant layer; a protective back plate; and sealing and packaging the solar module assembly.

Method and structural embodiments are described which provide an integrated structure using polysilicon material having different optical properties in different regions of the structure.

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.