Evaluation of Emitter Profiles and Lateral Uniformity on Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Cells Using Scanning Capacitance Microscopy

Scanning capacitance microscopy (SCM) has been used to generate two dimensional images of emitters formed using various doping techniques on polished and textured silicon photovoltaic cells. SCM has the advantage of high spatial resolution and sensitivity to carrier concentrations in the range of 1014 – 1020 cm-3. The ability to image emitters on textured substrates allows evaluation of variations in emitter thickness in local regions due to the surface texture or doping technique as well as other processing steps such as metallization.