1. Recent Developments of High Efficiency Micromorph tandem solar cells in KAI-M PECVD reactors
- Author
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Bailat, Julien, Fesquet, Luc, Orhan, Jean-Baptiste, Wolf, B., Madliger, P., Steinhauser, J., Benagli, Stefano, Borrello, D., Castens, Lucie, Monteduro, G., Marmelo, M., Dehbozorghi, B., Vallat-Sauvain, E., Multone, X., Romang, D., Boucher, J.-F., Meier, J., Kroll, U., Despeisse, Matthieu, Bugnon, Grégory, Ballif, Christophe, Marjanovic, S., Kohnke, G., Borrelli, N., Koch, K., Liu, J., Modavis, R., Thelen, D., Vallon, S., Zakharian, A., and Weidman, D.
- Abstract
This paper addresses three independent approaches to improving the performance of Micromorph® tandem solar cells: 1. Thinner cells for higher throughput in mass-production, 2. Optimum cell design and processes yielding stable efficiencies of 11.5% on as-grown ZnO front contact, and finally 3. The introduction of novel textured glass substrates prepared by Corning Incorporated to improve light-management. As a result of the joint research between Oerlikon Solar- Lab and Corning Incorporated, a Micromorph® tandem cell with no anti-reflection coating demonstrated a stable efficiency of 11.9% as independently measured by NREL. This third result represents a new milestone for thin film silicon solar cell technology which is 8% higher than one year ago. Combinations of these improvements are expected to enable cell efficiencies of 12.5% and beyond