Investigation of the effect of chemical pre-treatment on uniformity of the silicon wafer texturing for manufacturing a solar cell

The role of chemical pre-treatment on silicon surface quality and texturing uniformity was investigated. It was shown that for better uniformity of texturing the initial silicon surface of as-cut slurry sawed wafer should be treated to clean up from organic and metal contaminations followed by the organic solvent traces removing and saw damaged silicon layer etching. Additional measurements of photoluminescence decay confirmed high quality and uniformity of textured wafers passivated by a-Si:H. (paper)