Thin silicon solar cells: Pathway to cost-effective and defect-tolerant cell design
Thinner silicon wafers are a pathway to lower cost without compromising the efficiency of solar cells. In this work, we study the recombination mechanism for thin and thick silicon heterojunction solar cells, and we discuss the potential of using more defective material to manufacture high perform...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Published: |
Elsevier BV
2018
|
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/119186 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6895-9312 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8345-4937 |
| _version_ | 1826189692617359360 |
|---|---|
| author | Augusto, André Bowden, Stuart G. Looney, Erin Elizabeth del Canizo Nadal, Carlos Buonassisi, Anthony |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering Augusto, André Bowden, Stuart G. Looney, Erin Elizabeth del Canizo Nadal, Carlos Buonassisi, Anthony |
| author_sort | Augusto, André |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Thinner silicon wafers are a pathway to lower cost without compromising the efficiency of solar cells. In this work, we study the recombination mechanism for thin and thick silicon heterojunction solar cells, and we discuss the potential of using more defective material to manufacture high performance thin solar cells. Modelling the performance of silicon heterojunction solar cells indicates that at open-circuit voltage the recombination is dominated by Auger and surface, representing nearly 90% of the total recombination. At maximum power point, the surface is responsible for 50 to 80% of the overall recombination, and its contribution increases inversely with the wafer thickness. The expe rimental results show that for lower quality CZ material with 1 ms bulk lifetime, 60 μm-thick cells perform better than 170 μm-thick cells. The potential efficiency gain is 1% absolute. The gains in voltage of using thinner wafers are significantly higher for the lower quality CZ material, 25 mV, than for standard CZ material,10 mV. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:19:36Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/119186 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:19:36Z |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| publisher | Elsevier BV |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1191862022-09-23T12:21:29Z Thin silicon solar cells: Pathway to cost-effective and defect-tolerant cell design Augusto, André Bowden, Stuart G. Looney, Erin Elizabeth del Canizo Nadal, Carlos Buonassisi, Anthony Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering Looney, Erin Elizabeth del Canizo Nadal, Carlos Buonassisi, Anthony Thinner silicon wafers are a pathway to lower cost without compromising the efficiency of solar cells. In this work, we study the recombination mechanism for thin and thick silicon heterojunction solar cells, and we discuss the potential of using more defective material to manufacture high performance thin solar cells. Modelling the performance of silicon heterojunction solar cells indicates that at open-circuit voltage the recombination is dominated by Auger and surface, representing nearly 90% of the total recombination. At maximum power point, the surface is responsible for 50 to 80% of the overall recombination, and its contribution increases inversely with the wafer thickness. The expe rimental results show that for lower quality CZ material with 1 ms bulk lifetime, 60 μm-thick cells perform better than 170 μm-thick cells. The potential efficiency gain is 1% absolute. The gains in voltage of using thinner wafers are significantly higher for the lower quality CZ material, 25 mV, than for standard CZ material,10 mV. National Science Foundation (U.S.) United States. Department of Energy (CA No. EEC-1041895) National Science Foundation (U.S.). Graduate Research Fellowship Spain. Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (project ENE2014-56069-C4-2-R) United States. Department of Defense (DODRIF13-OEPP01-P-0020) 2018-11-19T16:03:10Z 2018-11-19T16:03:10Z 2017-09 2018-11-05T18:32:45Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 18766102 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/119186 Augusto, André, Erin Looney, Carlos del Cañizo, Stuart G. Bowden, and Tonio Buonassisi. “Thin Silicon Solar Cells: Pathway to Cost-Effective and Defect-Tolerant Cell Design.” Energy Procedia 124 (September 2017): 706–711. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6895-9312 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8345-4937 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/J.EGYPRO.2017.09.346 Energy Procedia Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ application/pdf Elsevier BV Elsevier |
| spellingShingle | Augusto, André Bowden, Stuart G. Looney, Erin Elizabeth del Canizo Nadal, Carlos Buonassisi, Anthony Thin silicon solar cells: Pathway to cost-effective and defect-tolerant cell design |
| title | Thin silicon solar cells: Pathway to cost-effective and defect-tolerant cell design |
| title_full | Thin silicon solar cells: Pathway to cost-effective and defect-tolerant cell design |
| title_fullStr | Thin silicon solar cells: Pathway to cost-effective and defect-tolerant cell design |
| title_full_unstemmed | Thin silicon solar cells: Pathway to cost-effective and defect-tolerant cell design |
| title_short | Thin silicon solar cells: Pathway to cost-effective and defect-tolerant cell design |
| title_sort | thin silicon solar cells pathway to cost effective and defect tolerant cell design |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/119186 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6895-9312 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8345-4937 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT augustoandre thinsiliconsolarcellspathwaytocosteffectiveanddefecttolerantcelldesign AT bowdenstuartg thinsiliconsolarcellspathwaytocosteffectiveanddefecttolerantcelldesign AT looneyerinelizabeth thinsiliconsolarcellspathwaytocosteffectiveanddefecttolerantcelldesign AT delcanizonadalcarlos thinsiliconsolarcellspathwaytocosteffectiveanddefecttolerantcelldesign AT buonassisianthony thinsiliconsolarcellspathwaytocosteffectiveanddefecttolerantcelldesign |