A 60-cell photovoltaic (PV) module was analyzed by optimizing the interconnection parameters of the solar cells to enhance the efficiency and increase the power of the PV module setup. The cell-to-module (CTM) losses and gains varied substantially during the various simulation iterations. Optimization was performed to inspect and augment the gain and loss parameters for the 60-cell PV module. The power and efficiency of the module were improved by refining several parameters, such as number of busbars, size of the contact pads, interconnected ribbon width, thickness of the core, and distance between the solar cells and strings, to obtain the maximum efficiency of 21.09%; the CTM efficiency achieved was 94.19% for the proposed strategy related to the common interconnection setup of the ribbon-based system. The CTM efficiency was improved by optimizing the geometrical, optical, and electrical parameters precisely, the power enhancement was up to 325.3 W, and a CTM power of 99.1% was achieved from a standard PV module with rectangular ribbon interconnections.

Recently, selective emitter (SE) technology has attracted renewed attention in the Si solar cell industry to achieve an improved conversion efficiency of passivated-emitter rear-contact (PERC) cells. In this study, we presented a novel technique for the SE formation by controlling the surface morphology of Si wafers. SEs were formed simultaneously, that is, in a single step for the doping process on different surface morphologies, nano/micro-surfaces, which were formed during the texturing processes; in the same doping process, the nano- and micro-structured areas showed different sheet resistances. In addition, the difference in sheet resistance between the heavily doped and shallow emitters could be controlled from almost 0 to 60 Ω/sq by changing the doping process conditions, pre-deposition and driving time, and temperature. Regarding cell fabrication, wafers simultaneously doped in the same tube were used. The sheet resistance of the homogeneously doped-on standard micro-pyramid surface was approximately 82 Ω/sq, and those of the selectively formed nano/micro-surfaces doped on were on 62 and 82 Ω/sq, respectively. As a result, regarding doped-on selectively formed nano/micro-surfaces, SE cells showed a J_SC increase (0.44 mA/cm²) and a fill factor (FF) increase (0.6%) with respect to the homogeneously doped cells on the micro-pyramid surface, resulting in about 0.27% enhanced conversion efficiency.

The low level doping of a selective emitter by etch back is an easy and low cost process to obtain a better blue response from a solar cell. This work suggests that the contact resistance of the selective emitter can be controlled by wet etching with the commercial acid barrier paste that is commonly applied in screen printing. Wet etching conditions such as acid barrier curing time, etchant concentration, and etching time have been optimized for the process, which is controllable as well as fast. The acid barrier formed by screen printing was etched with HF and HNO₃ (1:200) solution for 15 s, resulting in high sheet contact resistance of 90 Ω/sq. Doping concentrations of the electrode contact portion were 2 × 10²¹ cm⁻³ in the low sheet resistance (Rs) region and 7 × 10¹⁹ cm⁻³ in the high Rs region. Solar cells of 12.5 × 12.5 cm² in dimensions with a wet etch back selective emitter J _sc of 37 mAcm⁻², open circuit voltage (V _oc) of 638.3 mV and efficiency of 18.13% were fabricated. The result showed an improvement of about 13 mV on V _oc compared to those of the reference solar cell fabricated with the reactive-ion etching back selective emitter and with J _sc of 36.90 mAcm⁻², V _oc of 625.7 mV, and efficiency of 17.60%.

One of the key issues in the solar industry is lowering dopant concentration of emitter for high-efficiency crystalline solar cells. However, it is well known that a low surface concentration of dopants results in poor contact formation between the front Ag electrode and the n-layer of Si. In this paper, an evaporated Mg layer is used to reduce series resistance of c-Si solar cells. A layer of Mg metal is deposited on a lightly doped n-type Si emitter by evaporation. Ag electrode is screen printed to collect the generated electrons. Small work function difference between Mg and n-type silicon reduces the contact resistance. During a co-firing process, Mg is oxidized, and the oxidized layer serves as an antireflection layer. The measurement of an Ag/Mg/n-Si solar cell shows that V _oc, J _sc, FF, and efficiency are 602 mV, 36.9 mA/cm², 80.1%, and 17.75%, respectively. It can be applied to the manufacturing of low-cost, simple, and high-efficiency solar cells.

The use of iodine as a passivating agent for chemical modification of silicon surface is demonstrated. The measurement of carrier lifetime using microwave photoconductivity decay method shows an effective passivation with iodine treatment which is 5 times greater than hydrogen passivation. Unlike hydrogen termination, the negative charge created by the iodine termination enhances the solar cell performance. For n-type silicon, the charge effect results in electric passivation. For p-type silicon, the charge effect forms a barrier which acts as back surface field. For cells with the same area, open circuit voltage (VOC), short circuit current density (JSC), fill factor (FF), and efficiency (η) of iodine terminated one were 610 mV, 39.5 mA/cm2, 76.1%, and 18.3% while those of hydrogen passivated one were 600 mV, 33.4 mA/cm2, 73.1%, and 14.7%, respectively.