Development and characterisation of silicon solar cells with recombination interconnects for future tandem solar cells

Sammanfattning: In this project commercial BSF Si solar cells have been processed in order to develop a suitable interconnect for a possible tandem solar cell. The Ag original top contacts have been removed and replaced with TiSi2 formed using the SALICIDE process at 3 different temperatures: 500 °C, 650 °C and 750 °C. Raman spectroscopy and EDS maps have been used to prove the successful formation of the TiSi2 contacts for the 750 °C temperature. As part of this work we also developed a MATLAB script which successfully fits the measured IV curve of a Si solar cell and extrapolates the values of the components of the equivalent circuit. The script also identifies and quantifies the energy losses percentage for different loss mechanisms. The script was used to characterize commercial BSF Si solar cells and to simulate their behavior in a tandem configuration by IV measurements under filtered light. The results of this characterization was used to predict the requirements of a possible top solar cell for a tandem configuration.