Design rules for the reduction of the influence of material quality on the performance of crystalline silicon solar cells

Design rules are established to maximize efficiency while minimizing the influence of material quality on device efficiency. These design rules are verified using numerical modeling. It is shown that by reducing the back surface recombination velocity, adjusting doping concentration, introducing light-trapping features, and selecting the L/W ratio according to the lowest bulk lifetime in the material, absolute efficiency and efficiency variance may be simultaneously optimized in substrates of varying quality.