Our perspective on the Electrode Metallization for industrial scale Perovskite/Silicon Tandems is published now in Progress in Photovoltaics. The focus of the study reveals the challenges and opportunities of scaled metallization in terms of grid design to mitigate the power losses, adopting state-of-the-art screen-printed metallization as well as cost-effective alternate metallization routes and their viability for industrial applications.
Perovskite solar cells are an emerging photovoltaic technology that is gathering huge attention in the solar community for its power conversion efficiency. Recently, the coupling between the perovskite and the silicon technologies in the tandem configuration boosted even further this power conversion efficiency, reaching record values for terrestrial applications. However, several degradation mechanisms in the perovskite are negatively affecting the stability of this technology, questioning if successful commercialization is possible. At KPVLAB we are pioneering the outdoor testing of perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells to investigate, understand, and improve their stability.
This study, which takes place Advanced Materials Interfaces reports metallic lithium contact, applied to crystalline silicon solar cell and proved to be an excellent electron-selective, hole-blocking transport layer with an efficiency of 19%.
Ultrathin solar cells can be a path forward to low-cost photovoltaics due to their reduced material consumption and shorter required deposition times. With excellent surface passivation, such devices may feature higher open-circuit voltages (VOC). However, their short-circuit current density (JSC) may be reduced due to decreased light absorption. This mandates implementation of efficient light-trapping structures. To design efficient ultrathin solar cells that combine surface-passivation and light-trapping features, accurate 3-D modeling is necessary. To this end, we have developed a novel 3-D opto-electrical finite-element model to analyze the performance of ultrathin solar cells. We apply our model to the case of ultrathin (< 500 nm) chalcogenide solar cells (copper indium gallium (di) selenide, CIGSe), rear-passivated with nanostructured Al2O3 to circumvent optical and electrical losses, resulting in an absolute PCE enhancement of 3.9%, compared to cells without passivation structure.
This review, which took place in Advanced Materials, provides a comprehensive overview of the tin-oxide electron-selective layered for champion perovskite solar cells.