By Dr. Shubham Duttagupta; Dr. Naomi Nandakumar; Dr. John Rodriguez; Dr. Vinodh Shanmugam
Passivated emitter and rear cell (PERC) solar cell design is the industry standard for high-volume solar cell manufacturing today. The next challenge for the PV industry is to find a low-cost cell upgrade technology platform that can be easily retrofitted in existing production lines to modify the front side and enhance the rear. The monoPolyTM technology platform, developed at SERIS together with its strategic industry partners, offers an attractive solution and paves the way for the adoption of passivating contacts in large-scale manufacturing. This platform requires only one tool upgrade for most PERC/T production lines, has one less process step than a standard PERC production process, and yields a +1%abs. efficiency boost over a standard PERC process. The
authors believe that monoPoly will enable the PV industry to mass produce cells with efficiencies exceeding 24% in their existing lines in the near future.
