Method of plating by means of light
AssigneeSolarex Corporation
InventorLawrence F. Durkee
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Plating electrical contacts onto one or more surfaces of a solar cell having an electrical junction therein is accomplished by immersing the cell in an electrolyte and exposing it to light so that platable ions in the electrolyte will be attracted to an oppositely charged surface of the cell.
Claims9
A method of plating an electrical contact on a light-sensitive device displaying the photovoltaic effect, comprising providing a semiconductive wafer having at least two major surfaces, said wafer having a photovoltaic junction formed therein so that when one of said major surfaces of said wafer is exposed to light, negative charges will collect at a first of said major surfaces and positive charges will collect at a second of said major surfaces, providing a coating of a platable metal on said second major surface, positioning said wafer in a bath of an electrolyte containing positively charged ions of said platable metal, and exposing said wafer to light to create a migration of said metal from said coating into said electrolyte and thence to said negatively charged first major surface.
A method of selectively plating an electrical contact on a light-sensitive device displaying the photovoltaic effect, comprising providing a silicon wafer with at least two major surfaces, a first of said major surfaces being formed of a plurality of discontinuous surface segments, each of said segments having a photovoltaic junction underlying it and separate from adjacent segment junctions so that when said wafer is exposed to light, negative charges will collect at said first major surface segments and positive charges will collect at a said second major surface, positioning said wafer in a bath of electrolyte containing platable positively charged ions, and exposing said wafer to light so that said platable positively charged ions will be attracted to said negatively charged segments of said first major surface to plate said surface segments but not the discontinuities between said segments.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.