Methods of Building Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells for Use in Combinatorial Screening

A crystalline silicon solar cell test substrate, comprising:

• a diffusion barrier material deposited onto a frontside of a crystalline silicon substrate;
• a plurality of site-isolated regions defined on the frontside of the crystalline silicon substrate, wherein the site-isolated regions are defined by etching regions of the diffusion barrier material to expose regions of crystalline silicon, and wherein the exposed regions of crystalline silicon are textured after the etching of the diffusion barrier material, and wherein the exposed regions of crystalline silicon are doped with an n-type dopant after the texturing of the exposed regions of crystalline silicon;
• a passivation layer formed over the site-isolated regions defined on the frontside of the crystalline silicon substrate;
• a plurality of alternating n-doped and p-doped regions defined on the backside of the crystalline silicon substrate, wherein the alternating n-doped and p-doped regions are defined by photolithography, and wherein at least one n-doped region and at least one p-doped region are aligned with each of the site-isolated regions defined on the frontside of the crystalline silicon substrate;
• a passivation layer formed over the plurality of alternating n-doped and p-doped regions defined on the backside of the crystalline silicon substrate;
• and
• an electrical contact formed to each of the plurality of alternating n-doped and p-doped regions defined on the backside of the crystalline silicon substrate.

A crystalline silicon solar cell test substrate, comprising:

• a diffusion barrier material deposited onto a frontside and a backside of a crystalline silicon substrate;
• a plurality of site-isolated regions defined on the frontside of the crystalline silicon substrate, wherein the site-isolated regions are defined by etching regions of the diffusion barrier material to expose regions of crystalline silicon, and wherein the exposed regions of crystalline silicon are textured after the etching of the diffusion barrier material, and wherein the exposed regions of crystalline silicon are lightly doped with an n-type dopant after the texturing of the exposed regions of crystalline silicon, and wherein a portion of each site-isolated region is heavily doped with an n-type dopant after the lightly doping of the exposed regions of crystalline silicon;
• a passivation layer formed over the site-isolated regions;
• an electrical contact formed to the heavily doped exposed regions of crystalline silicon within each of the site-isolated regions;
• and
• a plurality of electrical contacts formed to the backside of the crystalline silicon substrate, wherein at least one electrical contact formed to the backside of the crystalline silicon substrate is aligned with one of the site-isolated regions defined on the frontside of the crystalline silicon substrate.