Epitaxially grown emitters for thin film silicon solar cells result in 16% efficiency

Abstract Epitaxial thin film silicon solar cell technology is one of the most promising midterm alternatives for cost effective industrial solar cell manufacturing. Here, CVD is used to grow the active base layer. However, also the emitter can be grown by CVD, with doping profiles as desired. In this paper, solar cell processes are established integrating both a two-step CVD grown emitter, and state-of-the-art concepts for optical light trapping in epitaxial cells. In this way, the significant increase in Voc is combined with an improved short-circuit and leads to a record efficiency of 16.1% with a current density of 33.2 mA/cm2, approaching the Jsc of bulk silicon solar cells.