Car News : High efficiency cells cost solar car

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

at 8:27 PM

Some of the techniques and design features used in the laboratory fabrication of silicon solar cells, to produce the highest possible efficiencies include:

* lightly phosphorus diffused emitters, to minimise recombination losses and avoid the existence of a "dead layer" at the cell surface;
* closely spaced metal lines, to minimise emitter lateral resistive power losses;
* very fine metal lines, typically less than 20 µm wide, to minimise shading losses;
* polished or lapped surfaces to allow top metal grid patterning via photolithography;
* small area devices and good metal conductivities, to minimise resistive losses in the metal grid;
* low metal contact areas and heavy doping at the surface of the silicon beneath the metal contact to minimise recombination;