Copper plating boosts i-PERC-type solar cell efficiencies
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By deploying a novel Nickel/Copper (Ni/Cu) plating on a p-type Czochralski silicon material, researchers at imec have been able to boost the average efficiency of i-PERC-type solar cells to 20.5%.
"Not only do these results show a considerable performance improvement compared to state of the art screen printed PERC cells, but our cost of ownership analysis also indicates a clear advantage on the financial level," said Jozef Szlufcik, department director of silicon photovoltaics at imec. "Our results show that Ni/Cu plating is one of the few new technologies that can simultaneously improve the efficiency of PERC solar cells, while reducing processing cost."
The cells were processed on imec's solar cell pilot line. A special plating tool from Dutch firm Meco was used to deposit the Ni/Cu front contacts.
The resulting i-PERC solar cell achieved an average efficiency of 20.5% on more than 100 cells with a very low standard deviation of only 0.1% and an average fill factor of 80%, validating the high quality of the front contacts.
"We now have the advantage of using Meco's industrial plating techniques and tools that were not available to earlier Ni/Cu adopters," commented Richard Russell, metallisation module leader at imec. "This gives us the opportunity to develop a more robust and cheaper process than was previously possible."
