The electrical properties of high performance multicrystalline silicon : Material limitation and cell potential

We compare the electrical properties of p-type and n-type industrial grown high performance multicrystalline silicon. The materials are characterised in terms of their bulk lifetimes, the density and recombination velocity of crystal defects, and their implied VOC. Quokka3 is applied to simulate the cell potential of the studied materials, and quantify the corresponding efficiency loss due to different recombination mechanisms occurring in the bulk. Our results show that bulk recombination in wafers from the middle of the ingot only contributes to negligible loss in conventional p-type Al-BSF solar cells. For higher efficiency solar cell structures, bulk recombination in HP mc-Si leads to a noticeable efficiency loss, varying from 0.6% to 1.6% absolute in the simulated devices, depending on the ingot position of the wafers. It is found that ntype HP mc-Si shows a slight advantage over p-type HP mc-Si, as it is less affected by recombination at the intra-grain regions.