Abstract
Here, we demonstrate the effectiveness of illuminated annealing using high-intensity light to improve the efficiency of industrial n-type silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells. The application of high intensity laser light during annealing at 200 °C led to efficiency improvements as large as 0.7% <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">abs</sub> and final efficiencies as high as 24.5%. This was demonstrated on industrial SHJ solar cells from five different manufacturers, indicating the robust application of this technique. We show that the annealing process with high-intensity light leads to significant efficiency enhancements compared to previous observations using light soaking under 1-sun conditions, meaning the process can be completed in 30 s, rather than hours. The observed enhancements were related to increased V <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">OC</sub> and fill factor. If this approach can be tailored to time scales amenable with mass production, the associated efficiency enhancements could drive reductions in the levelized cost of electricity for SHJ solar cells, making them more competitive in the face of existing technologies.
Highlights
T HE current world record efficiency of 26.7% for a single junction silicon solar cell was achieved using silicon heterojunction (SHJ) device architecture [1]
High intensity illuminated annealing using a laser was performed at University of New South Wales (UNSW) on 100 n-type SHJ cells fabricated in an industrial environment at Hevel LLC
We demonstrated the effectiveness of a 30 s highintensity illuminated annealing process to improve the performance of n-type SHJ solar cells
Summary
T HE current world record efficiency of 26.7% for a single junction silicon solar cell was achieved using silicon heterojunction (SHJ) device architecture [1]. The lack of a heavily doped surface region reduces Auger recombination, increasing the achievable VOC Another advantage of SHJ cells is the lower temperature coefficient, meaning that modules perform better when operating under elevated temperatures in the field [6]. They showed that the efficiency of SHJ solar cells increased following light soaking by up to 0.3%abs This increase was related to improved VOC and fill factor (FF), which was attributed to a reduction in interfacial defect states [27], [28]. The use of high-intensity light significantly accelerates the performance enhancement, with a processing time-scale on the order of seconds rather than hours This short time-scale means that temperatures exceeding 200 °C can be explored, which contradicts conventional thinking on the potential temperature processing windows for SHJ solar cells. This indicates that the enhancement is sensitive to the processing conditions used
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