Determination of Metal-Induced Recombination of n-Type Bifacial Si Solar Cells Using Special Print Patterns

A systematic routine to determine the front and rear metal induced recombination losses of bifacial silicon solar cells using an automated Griddler finite-element method fit procedure is presented in this paper. The method prescribes the preparation of easy-to-fabricate test patterns printed on the front and rear side of separate cells, nonmetallized cells, and simple photoluminescence imaging. Eight different samples with similar front boron emitter and different phosphorus back surface fields (BSFs) are analyzed. Choosing an optimized BSF is shown to lead to a cell efficiency gain of ~0.4% absolute.