Method of making front electrode of photovoltaic device having etched surface and corresponding photovoltaic device

US8022291B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• Guardian Industries Corp. · US

Inventors

• Scott V. Thomsen · Milford, US
• Yiwei Lu · Ann Arbor, US
• Alexey Krasnov · Brampton, CA

Key dates

• Filing date: Oct 15, 2008
• Grant date: Sep 20, 2011
• Expiry date: Nov 4, 2029

Classification

• Technology area (CPC Y): Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
• CPC primary: Y02E10/50

Abstract

Certain example embodiments of this invention relate to a photovoltaic (PV) device including an electrode such as a front electrode/contact, and a method of making the same. In certain example embodiments, the front electrode has a textured (e.g., etched) surface that faces the photovoltaic semiconductor film of the PV device. The front electrode has a transparent conductive oxide (TCO) film having first and second layers (continuous or discontinuous) of the same material (e.g., zinc oxide, zinc aluminum oxide, indium-tin-oxide, or tin oxide), where the first TCO layer is sputter-deposited using a ceramic sputtering target(s) and the second TCO layer of the same material is sputter-deposited using a metallic or substantially metallic sputtering target(s). This allows the better quality TCO of the film, deposited more slowly via the ceramic target(s), to be formed using the ceramic target and the lesser quality TCO of the film to be deposited more quickly and cost effectively via the metallic target(s). After the etching, most or all of the better quality ceramic-deposited TCO remains whereas much of the lesser quality metallic-deposited TCO of the film was removed during the etchin…