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We evaluate defect concentrations and investigate the lifetime potential of p-type single-crystal kerfless silicon produced via epitaxy for photovoltaics. In gettered material, low interstitial iron concentrations (as low as (3.2 ± 2.2) × 109 cm−3) suggest that minority-carrier lifetime is not limited by dissolved iron. An increase in gettered lifetime from <20 to >300 μs is observed after increasing growth cleanliness. This improvement coincides with reductions in the concentration of Mo, V, Nb, and Cr impurities, but negligible change in the low area-fraction (<5%) of dislocated regions. Device simulations indicate that the high bulk lifetime of this material could support solar cell efficiencies >23%.

We present a heterojunction (HJ) solar cell on n-type epitaxially grown kerfless crystalline-silicon (c-Si) with a conversion efficiency of 22.5%. The total cell area is 243.4 cm2. The cell has a short-circuit current density of 38.6 mA/cm2, an open-circuit voltage of 735 mV, and a fill factor of 0.791. The key advantages and technological tasks of epitaxial wafers for HJ solar cells are discussed, in comparison with conventional n-type Czockralski c-Si wafers. The combination of HJ and kerfless technology can lead to high conversion efficiency with a potential at low cost.

A good candidate for the top junction cell in a multijunction solar cell system is the GaP solar cell because of its proper wide band gap. Here, for the first time, we passivate the front surface of these GaP solar cells with an AlGaP layer. To study the passivation effect of this layer, we design a novel growth procedure via liquid phase epitaxy. X-Ray diffraction results show that the resulting passivation epitaxial layer is of good quality. Integrated quantum efficiency measurements show an 18% increase in current due to the AlGaP. The current-voltage measurements indicate that with this AlGaP surface passivation layer, the GaP solar cell's efficiency is 2.90%. This is an improvement over previously reported results for GaP solar cells.

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