US 3,998,659 AGranted

Solar cell with semiconductor particles and method of fabrication

AssigneeTexas Instruments Incorporated

InventorGene Felix Wakefield

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Abstract

Generally spherical shaped semiconductor particles comprising an inner core of one conductivity type and a thin peripheral layer of opposite conductivity type are produced in a fluidized bed reactor. Silicon particles introduced into the reactor are built up to a desired nominal diameter by vapor deposition from a silicon and dopant containing atmosphere introduced into the reactor; by changing the dopant constituent, the outer peripheral layer is then deposited. One use of such particles is in fabrication of a solar cell, wherein an array of the particles is located on an insulating sheet and overlying conductive layers, insulated from each other, make contact respectively with the peripheral layers and with areas of the core regions, exposed by etching. The particles also may be used to fabricate semiconductor devices, e.g., by use of orientation dependent etches to define flat surfaces on the particles parallel to specific crystallographic planes. Use of other semiconductor materials, e.g., germanium and cadmium slfide also is described.

Claims11

Dependent claims

A method of manufacturing a solar cell comprising setting a multiplicity of small semiconductor particles into a surface of a first insulating support layer to form a predetermined array of said particles partially embedded in said layer, said semiconductor particles each comprising an inner region of one conductivity type and an outer vapor deposited coating of opposite conductivity type;

depositing a layer of conductive material overlying said first insulating layer and conforming to the surface contours of the said opposite conductivity type coatings of said particles;
forming a first covering of insulating material over said first conductive layer between said particles to leave portions of said particles projecting from said insulating material;
removing areas of said conductive layer and of said coating of opposite conductivity type from said projecting portions of said semiconductor particles to expose areas of said one conductivity type of said particles;
forming a further covering of insulating material over said first covering of insulating material to leave smaller areas of said one conductivity type of said particles projecting from said further covering of insulating material;
and depositing conductive material on said further covering of insulating material to conform to the surface contours of said smaller areas of said particles to selectively interconnect the said one conductivity type regions of said particles.

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Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.