Abstract: Shunt can drastically decrease the solar cell conversion efficiency and its current measurement result only reflects the overall shunting effect of all shunts in a whole cell. In order to accurately characterize local shunts caused by the penetration of front contacts through the emitter junction, silicon solar cells with a new structure named beam bridge contact were fabricated. The result showed that the region under the emitter was more badly shunted than the other emitter regions. The sample preparation process was completely compatible with the industrial silicon fabrication sequence, which was of great convenience. The measurement results give informations on the solar cell structure, material ingredients, and process parameters.

Key words: solar cell