Characterizing and evaluating the impact of dislocations and grain boundaries on silicon solar cells

Abstract

High efficiency and low-cost, low-capex silicon substrates are necessary for the PV industry to grow to meet climate-driven deployment targets. The efficiency gap between the best devices using low-cost, low-capex substrates and monocrystalline silicon produced by the Czochralski method (CZ-Si) have shrunk recently. Here, we present numerical device simulations that show that current crystal growth, phosphorus diffusion gettering, and hydrogen passivation can produce low-cost, low-capex silicon with an efficiency potential well over 20%. We further show that incorporating these materials into higher efficiency architectures that operate at higher injection is likely to further improve their performance.