METHOD OF MANUFACTURING A HETERO-JUNCTION SOLAR CELL

The invention relates to a hetero-junction solar cell with edge isolation, having a front side for an incidence of light into the solar cell and a back side opposite to the front side and comprising: a doped and textured semiconductor substrate, said semiconductor substrate having a front surface and a back surface opposite to each other and an edge surrounding the semiconductor substrate; at least one front layer on the front surface of the semiconductor substrate, said at least one front layer containing semiconductor atoms or molecules being arranged in amorphous and/or microcrystalline and/or oxide and/or carbide phase; at least one back layer on the back surface of the semiconductor substrate, said at least one back layer containing semiconductor atoms or molecules being arranged in amorphous and/or microcrystalline and/or oxide and/or carbide phase; an electrically conductive anti-reflection coating on the at least one front layer, said anti-reflection coating covering the whole surface of the at least one front layer and being at least partially transparent to the light irradiating into the solar cell; an electrically conductive back coating on the at least one back layer; and a front grid metallization on the anti-reflection coating. the conductive back coating is formed on the surface of the at least one back layer with a distance to the edge of the semiconductor substrate, leaving a merging region consisting of a margin area of the surface of the at least one back layer and the edge of the semiconductor substrate free from the conductive back coating, wherein there is no electrical contact between the conductive back coating and the conductive anti-reflection coating at all during the whole process of formation of the conductive back coating. According to the invention, the at least one back layer is one layer or a stack of layers forming a back surface field or a back emitter of the solar cell, wherein a part of said at least one back layer overlaps the edge, and wherein a part of said at least one back layer overlaps the at least one front layer, and said electrically conductive anti-reflection coating covers the whole surface of the at least one front layer.