The 4cm2 battery showed a significant open circuit voltage of 754 mV. It is made of hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon (nc-Si:H) layer, which is said to have lower parasitic absorption and higher external quantum efficiency.
The area of the solar cell is 4 cm2.
Picture: Advanced Industrial Technology (AIST)
A team of scientists from Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) has developed an ultra-thin heterojunction solar cell for use in lightweight and flexible solar modules.
"Making thinner devices helps reduce material costs," Hitoshi Sai, the lead author of the study, told Photovoltaic Magazine. "There are several issues that need to be resolved for the commercial production of very thin c-Si batteries, but our results encourage [progress] to thinner wafers with a size of 120 microns, up from the current industry standard of 160 microns."
The solar cell has an area of 4cm2 and is made of n-type Czochralski (CZ) grown single crystal silicon wafers with a thickness of only 56.2μm. The scientists decided to replace the hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) layer commonly used in this battery with a hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon (nc-Si:H) layer. It is said that this layer can improve surface passivation, reduce parasitic absorption and Higher external quantum efficiency. This layer is grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD).
The surface of the battery is also coated with an anti-reflective coating based on silicon oxide (SiOx) to reduce the primary reflection loss. The device was tested under standard lighting conditions and found that its power conversion efficiency was 23.27%. It also shows an open circuit voltage of 754 mV, a short circuit current of 37.85 mA/cm2 and a fill factor of 81.5%.
"As far as we know, the open circuit voltage of 754 mV is the highest value independently confirmed under standard test conditions in any c-Si solar cell reported so far, even though the size of our SHJ [silicon heterojunction] cell is small. "Researchers noted that the efficiency of 23.27% is also the highest value for c-Si solar cells with a thickness of less than 60μm.
According to the Japanese group, the high open circuit voltage of the device is beneficial to its power generation because it helps to alleviate performance degradation at high temperatures, which makes the battery particularly suitable for hot and sunny climate areas. “Needless to say, mass production of very thin c-Si cells and modules with sufficient yield and high yield is still a challenging problem,” they also admitted.
The scientists concluded that their new cell shows that the heterojunction structure can also be successfully used for ultra-thin solar cells, and this configuration provides excellent surface passivation combined with a manufacturing process that can be performed at lower temperatures The advantages.
The device is described in the study of an extremely thin (56 μm) silicon heterojunction solar cell with an efficiency of 23.3% and an open circuit voltage of 754 mV, which was recently published in RRL Solar.
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