Nondestructive Characterization of Voids in Rear Local Contacts of PERC-Type Solar Cells

In this paper, we present two nondestructive characterization methods for the detection of voids in rear local contacts of passivated emitter and rear-type solar cells, namely scanning acoustic microscopy and computer tomography. We compare both methods and include a comparison with electroluminescence measurements. It is shown in this paper that voids can easily be detected with both measurement types without any sample preparation. We found a good match of scanning acoustic microscopy (SAM) and computer tomography (CT), which is presented for this purpose for the first time. The investigation was carried out for different aluminum pastes.