Screen-printed solar cells with simultaneous formation of porous silicon selective emitter and antireflection coating

In this work, industrial-type screen-printed monocrystalline silicon solar cells with an area of ~19.5 cm2 were chemically etched to produce simultaneously a self-aligned selective emitter and an antireflection coating. This was achieved by converting into porous silicon the superficial emitter cell region between the metal grid fingers without masking the contacts. As a result, an improvement in short-circuit current, open-circuit voltage and fill factor was obtained and the solar cell efficiency was boosted from 7.8 to 12.5%.