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IEEE JOURNAL OF PHOTOVOLTAICS
Achievement of More Than 25% Conversion
Efficiency With Crystalline Silicon
Heterojunction Solar Cell
Keiichiro Masuko, Masato Shigematsu, Taiki Hashiguchi, Daisuke Fujishima, Motohide Kai, Naoki Yoshimura,
Tsutomu Yamaguchi, Yoshinari Ichihashi, Takahiro Mishima, Naoteru Matsubara, Tsutomu Yamanishi,
Tsuyoshi Takahama, Mikio Taguchi, Eiji Maruyama, and Shingo Okamoto
Abstract—The crystalline silicon heterojunction structure
adopted in photovoltaic modules commercialized as Panasonic’s
HIT has significantly reduced recombination loss, resulting in
greater conversion efficiency. The structure of an interdigitated
back contact was adopted with our crystalline silicon heterojunc-
tion solar cells to reduce optical loss from a front grid electrode,
a transparent conducting oxide (TCO) layer, and a-Si:H layers as
an approach for exceeding the conversion efficiency of 25%. As
a result of the improved short-circuit current (Jsc ), we achieved
the world’s highest efficiency of 25.6% for crystalline silicon-based
solar cells under 1-sun illumination (designated area: 143.7 cm2 ).
Index Terms—Amorphous materials, photovoltaic cells, silicon
heterojunction, surface passivation.
I. INTRODUCTION
INCE solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, which utilize the
S sun, the most abundant renewable energy source, are in-
creasingly being used in many countries, the PV market has
been growing every year. 38 GW of PV modules were installed
in 2013, and the total installed capacity reached 137 GW world-
wide. Such rapid market growth has also driven the price reduc-
tion of PV modules.
As the price of PV modules has fallen, reducing the balance
of system (BOS) cost for inverters, mounting materials, instal-
lation, labor, and shipping has become more important. Highly
efficient solar panels can reduce the BOS cost more than inef-
ficient solar panels because they require fewer panels, less roof
space, fewer mounting materials, and shorter installation times.
The silicon heterojunction structure adopted in Panasonic’s
HIT1 has significantly reduced recombination loss for greater
Manuscript received June 25, 2014; revised August 5, 2014; accepted August
12, 2014.
The authors are with Solar Business Unit, Eco Solutions Company, Panasonic
Corporation, Kaizuka City, Osaka 597-0094, Japan (e-mail: masuko.keiichiro@
jp.panasonic.com; shigematsu.masato@jp.panasonic.com; hashiguchi.taiki@
jp.panasonic.com; fujishima.daisuke006@jp.panasonic.com; kai.motohide@
jp.panasonic.com; yoshimura.naoki3@jp.panasonic.com; yamaguchi.ttm@jp.
panasonic.com; ichihashi.yoshinari@jp.panasonic.com; mishima.takahiro@jp.
panasonic.com; matsubara.naoteru@jp.panasonic.com; yamanishi.tsutomu@
jp.panasonic.com; takahama.tsuyoshi@jp.panasonic.com; taguchi.mikio@jp.
panasonic.com; maruyama.eiji@jp.panasonic.com; okamoto.shingo1@jp.
panasonic.com).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JPHOTOV.2014.2352151
1 HIT is a registered trademark of the Panasonic group.
2156-3381 © 2014 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
1
efficiency. In addition, HIT has exhibited a low-temperature
coefficient and can produce more electricity than conventional
crystalline silicon solar panels at the same temperature as the
temperatures rise. The heterojunction structure of the solar cell
features intrinsic (i-type) and doped a-Si:H layers on a randomly
textured c-Si wafer [1]. The i- and p-type a-Si:H layers are de-
posited on one surface to obtain a p/n heterojunction, and the
i- and n-type a-Si:H layers are formed on the opposite surface
to obtain a back surface field structure. Transparent conductive
oxide (TCO) layers and metal grid electrodes are formed on
the doped layers. The surface dangling bonds of c-Si wafers
are well passivated by inserting high-quality i-type a-Si:H lay-
ers between the c-Si wafer and the doped a-Si:H layers. Any
thermal damage to the cell’s components is also avoided as a
result of low-temperature processes. A high open-circuit volt-
age (Vo c ) over 0.700 V can be attained. Recently, many groups
have focused on the excellent surface passivating properties and
have reported on crystalline silicon heterojunction cells [2]–[4].
In our cells, four main features have been optimized: the aspect
ratio and the resistivity of the grid electrodes, the absorption
and the conductivity of the TCO layers, the absorption and the
passivation of the a-Si:H layers, and the surface structure and
the damage to the c-Si wafers. We achieved 23.7% efficiency
in 2011 and 24.7% efficiency in 2013 using 98-μm-thick Si
thin wafers of a practical size (100 cm2 and above) [5], [6] and
attained an excellent Vo c of 0.750 V and a low surface recom-
bination velocity of 1.5 cm/s [7]. However, loss analysis of
the solar cell with 24.7% efficiency estimated that the optical
loss was 60–70% of the total loss [8]. An interdigitated back
contact structure [9] was adopted with our crystalline silicon
heterojunction solar cells to further reduce optical loss. Sun-
light is collected from the total surface area because the front
grid electrode is eliminated. Reduced absorption losses from
the a-Si:H and TCO layers on the front surface are also ex-
pected. SunPower has successfully industrialized point contact
solar cells with an interdigitated back contact structure [10]
as a high-efficiency silicon solar cell. In 2014, they updated
its efficiency to 25.0% [11]. The combination of crystalline
silicon heterojunction solar cells with an interdigitated back
contact structure has been studied by several groups [12]–[15].
In this paper, we describe the effectiveness of placing a front
grid electrode on the back of a crystalline silicon heterojunction
solar cell.
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2 IEEE JOURNAL OF PHOTOVOLTAICS

TABLE I
PROGRESS IN CELL PARAMETERS

Year 2013 2014 Improvement

Area [cm2 ] 101.8 143.7

Thickness [μm] 98 150
V o c [V] 0.750 0.740 −1.3%
J s c [mA/cm2 ] 39.5 41.8 +5.8%
Fig. 1. Structure of crystalline silicon heterojunction solar cell with interdig- F.F. [%] 83.2 82.7 −0.6%
itated back contact. E f f [%] 24.7 25.6 +3.6%

Fig. 3. EQE spectra of solar cells with efficiency of 24.7% (dashed line) and
25.6% (solid line).
Fig. 2. I–V characteristics of 25.6% efficiency solar cell at research level
(certified by AIST).

previous record on a crystalline silicon heterojunction solar cell

II. STRUCTURE OF A SOLAR CELL
Fig. 1 outlines the structure of a crystalline silicon hetero-
junction solar cell with an interdigitated back contact that was
fabricated using an n-type Czochralski crystalline silicon wafer
with a size of 154 cm2 and a resistivity of 1 Ω·cm. The wafer
has a textured structure on its front surface and a final thickness
of approximately 150 μm. Silicon nitride (SiN) and passiva-
tion layers were deposited on the top surface of the c-Si wafer.
The passivation layer shows good transparency and low sur-
face recombination velocity. The SiN layer generally acts as an
antireflective layer instead of the front TCO layer. An i-type a-
Si:H layer and doped a-Si:H layers that were n- or p-type were
deposited on the back surface of the c-Si wafer. Grid electrodes
with a thickness of several tens of micrometers were produced
on both the n- and p-type a-Si:H layers by electroplating. The
grid electrodes were electrically separated through a patterning
process. The current–voltage (I–V) characteristics were evalu-
ated by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science
and Technology (AIST).
III. CHARACTERISTICS OF A SOLAR CELL
Fig. 2 plots the I–V characteristics evaluated by AIST. 25.6%
conversion efficiency was achieved under an AM1.5 global spec-
trum at 100 mW/cm2 (designated area: 143.7 cm2 ) at 25 °C. This
is a new record for nonconcentrating silicon-based solar cells
at the research level. The improvement was 0.9 points over our
with a practical size (total area: 101.8 cm2 ) in 2013 and 0.6 points
over a previous record of a small-area crystalline silicon-based
solar cell (designated area: 4 cm2 ) in 1999 [16]. The cell param-
eters were compared with those of the previous record of 24.7%
efficiency (see Table I). The short-circuit current (Jsc ) signif-
icantly increased by 5.8%, although Vo c decreased by −1.3%
and the fill factor (F.F.) decreased by −0.6%. Conversion effi-
ciency (Eff ) improved by +3.6%. Detailed information on the
cell parameters is described below.
A. Jsc
Placing grid electrodes on the reverse side as back contact
significantly improved the Jsc of 41.8 mA/cm2 over the previ-
ous Jsc of 39.5 mA/cm2 . The improvement was 2.3 mA/cm2 .
Fig. 3 shows the external quantum efficiency (EQE) spectra for
the 24.7% and 25.6% cells. The EQE, which increases in a wide
range of wavelengths between 300 and 1000 nm, rose by a few
percent in a range of long wavelengths (500–1000 nm) because
the shadow loss of the front grid electrode was eliminated. The
increase in the short wavelength range (300–500 nm) probably
resulted from the reduced absorption losses in the TCO and
a-Si:H layers using the SiN and passivation layers with better
transparency. These results indicate that the back contact struc-
ture enabled light to reach the silicon wafer more efficiently.
The 25.6% cell’s EQE was slightly above that of the 24.7% cell
in a range of wavelengths above 1000 nm. However, the optical
confinement for the 25.6% cell might be inferior to that for the
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
MASUKO et al.: ACHIEVEMENT OF MORE THAN 25% CONVERSION EFFICIENCY WITH CRYSTALLINE SILICON HETEROJUNCTION
24.7% cell, considering the increase in the wafer thickness from
98 to 150 μm.
B. Vo c
We optimized the conditions for growing the a-Si:H layers
and cleaning the c-Si wafer’s surface to reduce damage to the
heterointerface. We obtained a high Vo c of 0.740 V, which was
close to the Vo c of 0.744 V for the 151-μm-thick crystalline sil-
icon heterojunction solar cell reported in 2013 [6] and superior
to the Vo c of other back contact solar cells fabricated through
thermal diffusion processes. These results suggest that the struc-
ture of the crystalline silicon heterojunction cell with back con-
tact reduced the recombination loss of the charge carriers as
well as the standard structure with a grid electrode on the front
surface.
C. F.F.
F.F. is generally affected by both resistive and recombination
losses at the operating point. Surface recombination contributes
to recombination loss at the operating point, and Vo c is mainly af-
fected by the Auger recombination. There is a tradeoff between
surface recombination and resistive losses in the thickness of
a-Si layers for crystalline silicon heterojunction solar cells [17].
We scrutinized the growth conditions to attain high passiva-
tion using thin a-Si:H layers and successfully obtained a-Si:H
layers with low resistivity and high passivation. The thickness,
linewidth, and electrical resistivity of the grid electrodes were
optimized as another approach for reducing resistive loss. Com-
pared with our 24.7% cell, the resistive loss was decreased by
25%, although the surface recombination loss increased. As a
result, we achieved an F.F. of 0.827 using a solar cell area over
100 cm2 . This is comparable with the high F.F. of 0.830 for the
25.0% SunPower solar cell [11].
IV. CONCLUSION
We have developed a crystalline silicon heterojunction so-
lar cell with an interdigitated back contact to reduce optical
loss. The Jsc improved to 41.8 mA/cm2 . As a result, a new
record efficiency of 25.6% was achieved for nonconcentrat-
ing silicon-based solar cells under 1-sun illumination (desig-
nated area: 143.7 cm2 ). The solar efficiency exceeded 26% with
our best cell parameters: Vo c : 0.750 V, Jsc : 41.8 mA/cm2 , and
F.F.: 83.2%. Note that crystalline silicon heterojunction solar
cells have the potential for improving conversion efficiency to
over 26%. We will continue to develop technology to achieve
26% efficiency.
3
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Authors’ photographs and biographies not available at the time of publication.