Thin absorbers for defect-tolerant solar cell design

Thin silicon wafers provide a pathway to lower cost and lower capital intensity PV module manufacturing. They can also produce higher-efficiency devices with less expensive feedstock and crystallization processes because they require shorter diffusion lengths and operate at higher carrier injection. Through simulation, we show that thin Si wafers can be incorporated into high-efficiency cells with greater defect tolerance than thick wafers. Experimentally, we demonstrate the importance of excellent surface passivation to realizing the efficiency potential of thin silicon solar cells and show that such passivation can be achieved in silicon/amorphous silicon heterojunction devices.