18.1% Efficiency for a Large Area, Multi-Crystalline Silicon Solar Cell

Multi-crystalline silicon has dominated the photovoltaic market in recent years and with advances in isotexturing and the production of increasingly thinner and larger wafers it is set to play a significant role in the future. As with other cell types, laboratory efficiencies remain higher than those achieved in production. Previous large area efficiency records on multi-crystalline silicon have included a 17.6% efficient cell produced at the University of Konstanz and a 17.7% efficient cell produced by Kyocera. The 17.6% cell was made using the buried contact technique. Again using this technique and multi-crystalline silicon, we have made an 18.1% efficient cell, independently confirmed by the calibration laboratories at Fraunhofer ISE. The area of the cell is 137.7 cm
²
; V
_oc
is 636 mV and J
_sc
is 36.9 mA/cm
²
. To the best of our knowledge, this is a new world record