Emitter design for high‐efficiency silicon solar cells. Part I: Terrestrial cells

Emitter diffusions for conventional high-efficiency silicon solar cells have commonly been designed to be very shallow to improve the short-wavelength response of the cells. This first part of a two-part paper has a substantial tutorial content and analyses the effect of the emitter design on cell performance with different cell surface passivation conditions. the analysis shows that shallow emitters are only necessary for cells with poor surface passivation. In contrast, high-efficiency cells with good surface passivation do not necessarily need shallow emitters. the application of these design insights into recent generations of high-efficiency passivated emitter solar cells is also discussed.

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