Cell Processing

Tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) technology will be the next big thing from this year on. By the end of 2023, PV production capacity will exceed 450GW, putting this technology in first place in terms of market share in the following years. All TOPCon cells are equipped with passivating contact on the rear and, most of them, with selective emitters or with LECO (Laser Enhanced Contact Optimization) processed surface on the front, which increase the voltage to above 725mV and enable cell efficiencies in production of around 24.5%. The next step in cell development is the implementation of passivating contacts for the p+ polarity.

Silicon (Si) photovoltaics (PV) are likely to become increasingly popular as part of global efforts to achieve carbon neutrality and mitigate climate change. In recent decades, two major Si solar cell technologies, i.e., aluminium back surface field and passivated emitter and rear contact, have been mass produced to meet market demands. The industry is currently striving to establish long-term plans for technological advancement to align with the evolving and dynamic market environment. Back contact (BC) solar cells, realised through various contact formation technologies, are expected to represent the ultimate evolution of Si PV technology in terms of both efficiency and cost-effectiveness. In this study, the evolution of Si solar cell structures is reviewed. Challenges for BC solar cell manufacturing are discussed. We report the advancement of the BC technology at LONGi.

With the expected increase in annual photovoltaic production capacity beyond 1TWp/a (terrawatt-peak per year), the emphasis on novel, next-generation production technologies gains significance from the perspective of potentially lowering production costs as well as increasing sustainability by reducing the resources required in manufacturing. The focus of this work is to analyse the impact of high-throughput (HTP), next-generation silicon solar cell production technologies, as developed within the framework of the NextTec research and development project, on the required i) amount of equipment, ii) capital expenditure (CAPEX) and iii) labour, herein termed as key performance indicators (KPIs), for a solar cell production facility with an annual capacity of 10GWp.

We develop a novel manufacturing process sequence for polysilicon on oxide (POLO) IBC solar cells by applying a local PECVD SiOxNy/na- Si deposition through a glass shadow mask to form the structured carrier-selective n-poly-Si emitter in a single process step.

In this paper, three generations of silicon heterojunction (HJT) solar cell technical routes in China are reviewed. We define the structure of HJT cells with an amorphous silicon thin film on two surfaces of a monocrystalline-silicon (c-Si) wafer as HJT 1.0, which is the first generation of HJT.

This paper reviews the idea and methodologies of the passivation-liquid-based compensating technology for the separation loss of silicon cells, which provides future perspective for the photovoltaic industry and potentially helps to promote industry upgrades.

As the PV industry rapidly advances towards annual PV production and installations on a terawatt scale, many aspects that are currently not critical will need to be considered. Among these, material availability is probably one of the most pressing ones. Established production routines will need to be changed, which may pose significant time constraints in the light of the fast-growing market. The focus of this paper will be on the use of silver for solar cell metallization. Past developments are discussed and an overview is given of the fast-growing number of relevant publications from the scientific community that deal with the problems associated with silver.

This paper reviews the steps to making a breakthrough in TOPCon efficiency, from cell to PV module, by using industrially viable manufacturing processes. A detailed characterization and investigation of the primary losses of JinkoSolar’s TOPCon record cell of July 2020, with an efficiency of 24.8%, is presented.

This paper gives an overview of the technological maturity of various TOPCon approaches with the goal of achieving the most cost-effective, resource-conserving and mass-production-capable implementation.

This paper reviews those associated fabrication technologies for the mass production of Ni/Cu-plated contacts. The technologies currently in use in the PV industry for plated contacts, as well as the developing technologies having high scaling-up potential, will be reviewed. In addition, the future requirements for plating metallization will be discussed.