Industrial PERC Si solar cells achieve 20 per cent efficiency
01 October 2013
Industrial PERC Si solar cells achieve 20 per cent efficiency
Research centre imec, with partners RENA and SoLayTec, will demonstrate silicon cells achieving 20.1 per cent cell efficiency.
At European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition (EUPVSEC, Paris), the companies will present thin (160µm), large area (156x156mm²) industrial PERC-type silicon solar cells achieving a best cell efficiency of 20.1 per cent using atomic layer deposition (ALD) Al2O3 passivation and standard screen printed contacts.
The solar cells have been manufactured on imec’s silicon solar cell pre-pilot line using RENA’s InPilot tool for rear-side polishing and emitter removal, and SoLayTec’s spatial ALD tool for Al2O3 deposition. These cells reached a best cell conversion efficiency of 20.1 per cent and open circuit voltages up to 655mV. When applying Cu-plated contacts at the front instead of silver screen printed contacts, a top efficiency of 20.6 per cent was reached.
Dr Joachim John, Photovoltaic R&D projects, imec said “This supports the acceleration of process implementation in next generation high-throughput solar cell manufacturing.”
Roger Gortzen, co-founder of SoLayTec commented: “Achieving a factor three, less TMA precursor usage, without effecting the cell efficiency on the silicon PV processing facilities proves that our passivation process, (costing less than 2€ct/layer) without effecting the cell efficiency, is ready to be implemented in an industrial environment.”
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