Recent progress in silicon solar cells

Abstract

The present paper reports two recent independently confirmed results for silicon solar cell efficiency. An improved efficiency for an individual silicon cell of 24.5% is reported, the highest ever, as is 19.8% efficiency for a multicrystalline silicon cell, the latter representing a 6.5% relative improvement over the previously best result. Not only does the latter result for this relatively low quality material closely approach the 20% efficiency mark, once thought to be a limit on silicon cell performance regardless of multicrystalline material quality, but it also shows the potential for such multicrystalline material exceeding the performance capacity of standard crystalline Czochralski material.