An apparatus for manufacturing an electrode assembly for connecting a front surface of a first solar cell to a back surface of a second solar cell, the electrode assembly comprising a plurality of conductive elements arranged substantially parallel to one another in a longitudinal direction and substantially spaced apart in a transverse direction, the apparatus comprising: a first roll and a second roll spaced apart to define a gap therebetween for receiving the plurality of conductive elements; and an actuator configured to rotate at least one of the first and second rolls; wherein the apparatus is configured to periodically reduce the gap between the first and second rolls to periodically apply a compressive force to the plurality of conductive elements arranged in the gap when the at least one of the first and second rolls rotates.

Embodiments of the disclosure provide a method for manufacturing a photovoltaic module, including: providing at least one cell string, an end portion of each cell overlaps with an end portion of an adjacent cell to form a corresponding overlapping welding region; for each overlapping welding region, forming a film insertion opening between stacked end portions of the two adjacent cells forming the each overlapping welding region; providing at least one film strip, and inserting a part of each film strip into a corresponding film insertion opening, such that a width of the part of the each film strip inserted into the corresponding film insertion opening is larger than a width of the remaining part of the each film strip; and closing each film insertion opening.

The present invention discloses a manufacturing apparatus for a photovoltaic cell string, the manufacturing apparatus including a feeding mechanism, a ribbon feeding mechanism, a jig loading and unloading mechanism, a soldering mechanism, a coating and curing mechanism, and a cell string conveying mechanism. By means of a traction mechanism and a manipulator, multiple strands of ribbons cut to a length required by a process and two kinds of materials of a cell piece are sequentially arranged in sequence, so that the front and back sides of adjacent batteries are pre-soldered into a cell string by multiple strands of ribbons in sequence; and coating adhesion points on the front and back sides of the cell string in the subsequent work flow and curing completely eliminate the risk of poor lapping, eliminating the composite film and PAD points on the front and back sides of the cell piece.

A solar cell including: substrate having front and back surfaces, the back surface includes first, second and gap regions, the first and second regions are staggered and spaced from each other in a first direction, and each gap region is provided between adjacent first and second regions, first pyramidal texture structure regions are formed corresponding to gap regions and distance between top and bottom thereof is 2-4 m; first conductive layer formed over the first region; second conductive layer formed over the second region, the second conductive layer has conductivity type opposite to the first conductive layer; first electrode forming electrical contact with the first conductive layer; second electrode forming electrical contact with the second conductive layer; and boundary region between the gap region and the first and/or second conductive layer adjacent thereto, and the boundary region includes strip or line patterned texture structures arranged at intervals.

A grid for minimizing effects of ion divergence in plasma ion implant. The plasma grid is made of a flat plate having a plurality of holes, wherein the holes are arranged in a plurality of rows and a plurality of columns thereby forming beamlets of ions that diverge in one direction. A mask is used to form the implanted shapes on the wafer, wherein the holes in the mask are oriented orthogonally to the direction of beamlet divergence.

A flexible, lightweight photovoltaic cell array includes one or more individual photovoltaic cell strings attached to a polyimide film substrate and covered with a polyvinyl fluoride film. Each photovoltaic cell string includes one or more photovoltaic cells attached to a flexible printed circuit board. The photovoltaic cell array may be manufactured by a method that includes bonding at least one photovoltaic cell to a flexible printed circuit board, mounting the flexible printed circuit board on a polyimide film substrate, and covering the flexible printed circuit board with a substantially transparent polyvinyl fluoride film.

The disclosure includes a laser soldering method of connecting crystalline silicon solar batteries. Methods can include placing conductive soldering strips and crystalline silicon solar batteries on a lower press plate and aligning the conductive soldering strips on metal electrodes of crystalline silicon solar batteries. Methods can also include placing an upper press plate on the conductive soldering strips and the crystalline silicon solar batteries and vacuuming between the upper and lower press plates such that absolute pressure between the upper and lower press plates is less than atmospheric pressure. Methods can also include laser soldering the conductive soldering strips and the crystalline silicon solar batteries.

A string of shingled solar cells is disclosed. The string of shingled solar cells has flexible joints connecting the solar cells made from cured liquid polymeric adhesive. An electrically conductive interconnect passes through the flexible joint. The string of shingled solar cells also has interconnect reinforcements made from cured liquid polymeric adhesive to improve interconnect adhesion to the front surface of the solar cells.

A bypass diode assembly includes a plurality of diodes and a plurality of interconnects coupled to the plurality of diodes. Functionality of the plurality of diodes to prevent current limiting of a solar cell string that the bypass diode assembly is coupled to is not dependent on back metal of solar cells of the solar cell string. Each interconnect includes one or more relief features. A first terminal of a first diode of the plurality of diodes is physically and electrically coupled directly to a first end of a first interconnect of the plurality of interconnects. A second terminal of a second diode of the plurality of diodes is physically and electrically coupled directly to a second end of the first interconnect. Also, a first end of a second interconnect of the plurality of interconnects is physically and electrically coupled directly to a first terminal of the second diode.

A solar cell can include a built-in bypass diode. In one embodiment, the solar cell can include an active region disposed in or above a first portion of a substrate and a bypass diode disposed in or above a second portion of the substrate. The first and second portions of the substrate can be physically separated with a groove. A metallization structure can couple the active region to the bypass diode.