Record Efficiency of PhosTop Solar Cells from n-type Cz UMG Silicon Wafers

Schiele, Yvonne; Wilking, Svenja; Book, Felix; Wiedenmann, Thomas; Hahn, Giso

doi:10.1016/j.egypro.2013.07.304

Cited by 13 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 9 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Upgraded Metallurgical-Grade (UMG) silicon has raised interest as a low cost alternative material for high efficiency silicon solar cells. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] UMG silicon feedstock is purified using a liquid phase purification process. As a result, it contains more impurities, especially shallow acceptors and donors (B, Al, and P), and the minority carrier lifetime is usually lower in the as-grown state.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Upgraded metallurgical-grade silicon solar cells with efficiency above 20%

Zheng

Rougieux

Samundsett

et al. 2016

Applied Physics Letters

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We present solar cells fabricated with n-type Czochralski-silicon wafers grown with strongly compensated 100% upgraded metallurgical-grade feedstock, with efficiencies above 20%. The cells have a passivated boron-diffused front surface, and a rear locally phosphorus-diffused structure fabricated using an etch-back process. The local heavy phosphorus diffusion on the rear helps to maintain a high bulk lifetime in the substrates via phosphorus gettering, whilst also reducing recombination under the rear-side metal contacts. The independently measured results yield a peak efficiency of 20.9% for the best upgraded metallurgical-grade silicon cell and 21.9% for a control device made with electronic-grade float-zone silicon. The presence of boron-oxygen related defects in the cells is also investigated, and we confirm that these defects can be partially deactivated permanently by annealing under illumination. V

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…6 This was then followed by a 19% n-type UMG Cz homojunction cell one year later. 7 Recently, Rougieux et al 12 reported a 19.8% efficient Passivated Emitter Rear Totally diffused (PERT) cell using 100% UMG n-type Cz.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Upgraded metallurgical-grade silicon solar cells with efficiency above 20%

Zheng

Rougieux

Samundsett

et al. 2016

Applied Physics Letters

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Recently, Wang et al reported an industrial type of solar cells with selective front‐surface field and better emitter surface passivation by AlO x / SiN x layer; the obtained highest efficiency was 20.6% . Moreover, Schiele et al reported a record efficiency of 19% based on relative “dirty” upgraded metallurgical‐grade (compensated) silicon . In a word, the aluminum‐alloyed back‐junction n‐type silicon solar cells have a very good potential for commercial application.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fabrication and temperature‐dependent performance of aluminum‐alloyed back‐junction n‐type silicon solar cells

Lin

et al. 2017

Progress in Photovoltaics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Aluminum-alloyed back-junction is a novel concept for low-cost and industrially feasible n-type silicon solar cells. In this paper, we fabricated industrially high-efficiency solar cells based on both uncompensated and compensated n-type silicon. Moreover, we measured the impact of temperature on the photovoltaic performance of aluminum-alloyed back-junction n-type silicon solar cells. Compared with conventional front-junction solar cells, the back-junction silicon solar cells have a lower absolute temperature coefficient especially for moderate carrier diffusion lengths which is attributed to distinctive spectral response, stronger dependence on carrier diffusion lengths, and incomplete ionization of aluminum. In addition, the lowest absolute temperature coefficient is obtained on this type of aluminum-alloyed back-junction solar cell when the compensated silicon is used as the base layer. These results suggest that aluminumalloyed back-junction solar cells especially based on the compensated silicon can generate more electricity at a high temperature, and therefore, as a cost-effective production of silicon solar cells, this type of solar cells have a very good potential for actual outdoor application. This work is highly relevant to the development of an advanced process for the achievement of low-cost, high-efficiency, commercially viable silicon-based solar cells.

show abstract

“…Upgraded Metallurgical‐Grade (UMG) silicon has raised interest as an alternative material for silicon solar cells . UMG silicon is produced using a liquid phase purification of Metallurgical‐Grade (MG) silicon, but contains more impurities than electronic‐grade (EG, vapour phase purification) silicon, especially shallow acceptors (B, Al) and donors (P).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High efficiency UMG silicon solar cells: impact of compensation on cell parameters

Rougieux

Samundsett

Fong

et al. 2015

Progress in Photovoltaics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

High efficiency solar cells have been fabricated with wafers from an n-type Czochralski grown (Cz) ingot using 100% Upgraded Metallurgical-Grade (UMG) silicon feedstock. The UMG cells fabricated with a passivated emitter and rear totally diffused (PERT) structure have an independently confirmed cell efficiency of 19.8%. This is the highest efficiency reported for a cell based on 100% UMG silicon at the time of publication. The current and power losses are analysed as a function of measured material parameters, including carrier mobility, lifetime and the presence of the boron-oxygen defect. Dopant compensation is shown to reduce both the minority carrier lifetime and mobility, which significantly affects both the current and voltage of the device.

show abstract

Record Efficiency of PhosTop Solar Cells from n-type Cz UMG Silicon Wafers

Cited by 13 publications

References 9 publications

Upgraded metallurgical-grade silicon solar cells with efficiency above 20%

Upgraded metallurgical-grade silicon solar cells with efficiency above 20%

Fabrication and temperature‐dependent performance of aluminum‐alloyed back‐junction n‐type silicon solar cells

High efficiency UMG silicon solar cells: impact of compensation on cell parameters

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About