Design, Fabrication, and Characterization of n-Si IBC Solar Cells Using PERC Technology

In this article, high-efficiency n-Si interdigitated back contact solar cells (IBC) were fabricated with the perc-like process. The cell was demonstrated with the efficiency of 22.16% (cell area =10 × 10cm), open-circuit voltage of 685 mV, short-circuit current density of 41.21 mA/cm
²
, and fill factor of 78.48%. The low fill factor can be attributed to the high base recombination taking place under high-level injection. Fill factor over 81% and, therefore, cell efficiency over 23% is expected when wafers of high bulk lifetime (τ
_bulk
≥ 10 ms) or low resistivity (ρ ≤ 1 Ω·cm) are used. The light I-V curve was fully characterized with the optical and electronic properties obtained from independent measurements.