Current State-of-the-art Silicon solar cells Thin Film Silicon Solar Cells Chalcogenide-based cells

Lecture 3 - Solar Cell Technology - Overview I

Alan P. Morrison

September 17, 2019

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Table of contents

1 Current State-of-the-art

2 Silicon solar cells

3 Thin Film Silicon Solar Cells

4 Chalcogenide-based cells

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Solar cell efficiency chart

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What manufacturers want

Value of PV cell per unit area is less than for other silicon
devices
Cost and efficiency are kings
The goal of manufacturers is to develop the highest efficiency solar
cells for the lowest possible production cost

Material cost reduction is a big step towards realizing this

goal!

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Hitachi Production Process

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Silicon Solar Cells

Over 60 years in development, largest share of device

production (∼90%)
Silicon will remain the most important material for solar cell
production for the foreseeable future
Provides the highest energy conversion efficiency of all
commercial cells/modules (without concentration)
Silicon cells with standard cell structures are ∼16 - 18%
(mono crystalline)
Polycrystalline cells are ∼15 - 17% efficient
Module efficiencies are typically ∼2% less than individual cell
efficiency

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Silicon Solar Cells

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Silicon Solar Cells - Structure

Textured surface and anti-reflection coating reduce reflection

loss of incident light
Diode structure formed by n+ Phosphorous doping on the
front surface of a p-type (Boron doped) substrate
Back-surface field, p++ (BSF) formed at back surface by
firing screen printed aluminium paste - helps to suppress
surface carrier recombination
Front contact grid lines usually formed by screen printing of
silver paste
Some commercial cells employ boron doped BSF and Ni-Cu
plated contacts

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Silicon Solar Cells - Costs

Silicon substrate ∼50% of module cost

Cell processing ∼20% of module cost
Module processing ∼30% of module cost
Feedstock cost
Module production cost share is strongly affected by the market
price of the silicon wafer feedstock. Reducing silicon substrate
costs is a major issue for the PV industry.

Crystalline silicon cells are not as efficient as single junction

GaAs or multi-junction concentrator cells, but provide a good
compromise between efficiency and cost.

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Crystalline silicon solar cell types

(a) Passivated emitter rear localised (PERL) cell

(b) Heterojunction with intrinsic thin layer (HIT) cell (c) Back
contact - back junction (BC-BJ) cell (d) Interdigitated back
contact (IBC) cell (e) Buried contact cell structure (BP Solar)
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Crystalline silicon solar cell types

PERL Cell - research device - ∼25% efficiency (UNSW)
HIT Cell - industrial use - ∼23% efficiency - heterojunction
with amorphous and crystalline silicon
BC-BJ or IBC cell - ∼23.4% efficiency - industrial cell process
(Stanford Uni.)
Commercially available solar cells remain 7 - 9% lower in
efficiency compared to the best research cells
Although BC-BJ and HIT cells have high efficiency the
process is longer thus making it difficult for these cells to
compete commercially in production cost per output watt
Monocrystalline cells account for ∼38% of all solar cells
manufactured
Polycrystalline cells make up ∼48% of all solar cells
manufactured
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Silicon Solar Cells - Outlook

High-efficiency structures required for improving efficiency of

both mono crystalline and polycrystalline PV cells
Approaches to reduce cell costs include using thinner silicon
wafers (<100µm)
Methods under investigation to improve quality of
polycrystalline substrates to match that of more expensive
monocrystalline wafers
Peak theoretical efficiency of crystalline silicon homojunction
cell is 30% under standard test conditions - still room for
practical improvement of devices and materials

Silicon Solar Cell Manufacturing Video

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Thin film solar cells

In conventional solar cells the starting wafer accounts for

∼50% of the module cost
Cost is reduced if wafers are replaced by thin-films on
appropriate substrates (usually glass)
There are several modern thin-film technologies:
I Amorphous or nanocrystalline silicon
I polycrystalline chalcogenide (Group VI) semiconducting
compounds e.g. CdTe, CdS
I Organometallic dyes and polymers
Module efficiency from 4 - 10% is normal for this category of
solar cell

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Thin film solar cell market

Production volumes are dominated by a-Si and CdTe

approaches
Total combined market share in 2005 was <10%, 2009 was
25%, and anticipated at 38% in 2020.
Capital Costs
There is a higher barrier for market entry for thin-film technologies,
due to higher capital costs per unit output for thin-film
manufacturing facilities.

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Single-junction amorphous silicon

Used in consumer products such as watches and calculators

since 1980’s
a-Si deposited on glass at low temperatures to allow
incorporation of ∼10% atomic hydrogen (improves material
quality)
Simple technology using benign components
Uses equipment commonly found in active matrix display
technology
Suffers from light-induced material quality degradation
Stabilised module efficiency ∼4 - 6%

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Single-junction amorphous silicon

p-i-n junction structure used and laterally connected as shown

above in Fig. (b)
a-Si not very conductive so transparent conductive tin-oxide
layer is used between Si and glass
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Multiple-junction amorphous silicon

Material band gap should decrease in lower cells

a-Si:H has band gap ∼1.7 eV
Bandgap usually reduced by alloying with Ge
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Crystalline Silicon on Glass (CSG)

“Newish” technology
High temperature processing to convert a-Si to polycrystalline
Si
Material is more conductive, eliminates need for SnO2 and has
no stability problem
Module efficiency of 7 - 8% expected

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Cadmium Sulphide

First thin-film cells for mass manufacture in mid-1970’s and

1980’s
Unsuccessful due to stability of cells and competition from a-Si
Other chalcogenide cells have since flourished:
I Cadmium Telluride (CdTe)
I Copper-indium (Gallium) diselenide (CIS or CIGS)

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Cadmium Telluride

Main concern is environmental - Cadmium is highly toxic

BP-solar and Matsushita both abandoned CdTe because of
environmental concerns

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Copper-indium diselenide (CIS)

22% reported lab efficiency for small cells

Module efficiencies exceeding 16%
Thin layer of CdS required - Cadmium problems again!
Long term concern for indium availability
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Solar Cell Spectral Sensitivity

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