A large variety of different strategies has been proposed as alternatives to random textures to improve light coupling into solar cells. While the understanding of dedicated nanophotonic systems deepens continuously, only a few of the proposed designs are industrially accepted due to a lack of scalability. In this Article, a tailored disordered arrangement of high-index dielectric submicron-sized titanium dioxide (TiO2) disks is experimentally exploited as an antireflective Huygens' metasurface for standard heterojunction silicon solar cells. The disordered array is fabricated using a scalable bottom-up technique based on colloidal self-assembly that is applicable virtually irrespective of material or surface morphology of the device. We observe a broadband reduction of reflectance resulting in a relative improvement of a short-circuit current by 5.1% compared to a reference cell with an optimized flat antireflective indium tin oxide (ITO) layer. A theoretical model based on Born's first approximation is proposed that links the current increase in the arrangement of disks expressed in terms of the structure factor S(q) of the disk array. Additionally, we discuss the optical performance of the metasurface within the framework of helicity preservation, which can be achieved at specific wavelengths for an isolated disk for illumination along the symmetry axis by tuning its dimensions. By comparison to a simulated periodic metasurface, we show that this framework is applicable in the case of the structure factor approaching zero and the disks' arrangement becoming stealthy hyperuniform.

This work reports the first results of a new generation plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) reactor manufactured by Roth and Rau. This large area parallel plate reactor has been especially designed for the manufacturing of silicon heterojunction solar cells which are made of very thin amorphous silicon films over monocrystalline silicon substrates. Layer thickness uniformity below ± 3 % is reported for both intrinsic and doped layer over a 400 × 400 mm 2 area. Moreover, it is shown that the passivation quality is excellent with life-times up to 4.15 ms on n-type FZ silicon substrates. A ± 0.6 % uniformity in open circuit voltage (mean value of 701.4 mV) is achieved over 32 devices having a 4 cm 2 area and an average conversion efficiency of 19.5 %.

A broadband nanodisk-based anti-reflection coating is experimentally shown to increase the short circuit current of industrial type solar cells with several square centimeter area by 5.1 % compared to an optimized flat coating.

Smart Wire Connection Technology (SWCT) is an efficient cell interconnection technology that combines many advantages: reduced cell metallization cost, improved module aesthetics, lead-free module.. In addition to the many advantages of this technology, we recently discovered a new opportunity to further boost efficiency of this module technology by overlapping cells. An overlap module is formed by cells overlapped in the string direction. This feature allows to reduce module dimensions and fabrication cost without reducing module power output. An optimal cell overlap of 1mm was determined and large 60 cells bifacial modules were built to compare this concept to regular modules with a cell spacing of few millimetres. Ageing of the module was evaluated and outdoor data presents high performances of overlapped modules in real conditions. So far, a 327Wp bifacial module was build based on this module concept. This module based on 60 heterojunction solar cells measures less than 1.6m2 and has an efficiency of 20.6% with a black back reflector.

When considering silicon heterojunction technology (HJT) for mass production the most frequently expressed reservations are related to the performance and cost constraints the standard TCO on the cell front side namely thin indium tin oxide (ITO) constitutes. We address these concerns with our HJT 2.0 concept in which the front electrode is made of a bi-layer of ITO that is supplemented by a silicon nitride (SiN) layer. This cell concept was developed to yield an increase in efficiency of typically 0.2% absolute due to improved cell current and a cost saving in the range of 30-40% with respect to cost of ownership (CoO).

: Silicon heterojunction technology (HJT) for mass production frequently meets reservations related to the performance and cost constraints the standard TCO on the cell front side namely indium tin oxide (ITO) constitutes. We address and mitigate these concerns with our HJT 2.0 concept in which the front electrode is made of a bi-layer of much thinner ITO that is supplemented by a silicon nitride (SiN) layer. This cell concept was developed to yield an improvement in device efficiency of typically 0.2% absolute due to increased cell current and a considerable cost saving of around 0.5ct$/Wp with respect to cost of ownership (CoO) for the module.

The physics behind broadband reflection suppression that high index dielectric nanoparticle arrays can provide is revisited. We demonstrate that antireflective properties are inherently connected to how equal the effective magnetic and electric responses are.