By Bo Li, General Manager of Solar Cells, SunEdison, Inc.; Joel Kearns, Vice President for Solar R&D, SunEdison, Inc.
Future high efficiency silicon solar cells are expected to be based on n-type monocrystalline wafers. Cell and module photovoltaic conversion efficiency increases are required to contribute to lower cost per watt peak and to reduce balance of systems cost. Past barriers to adoption of n-type silicon cells by a broad base of cell and module suppliers include the higher cost to manufacture a p-type emitter junction and the higher cost of the n-type mono silicon crystal. Technologies to reduce the cost of manufacturing the p-type emitter by diffusion or implantation of boron are being developed in the industry. To reduce the cost and improve further the quality of n-type mono silicon crystal, SunEdison has developed a continuous Czochralski (CCZ) crystal pulling process, based on the technology of Solaicx, acquired in 2010. This CCZ technique allows production of a crystal with much greater resistivity uniformity, with a lower incorporation rate of lifetimereducing metals impurities, and allows crystal oxygen to be selected independent of production batch size. CCZ is expected to reduce n-type crystal cost below that of current p-type mono crystal.
