ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an experimental investigation into the dependence of the electrical performance of high-efficiency silicon cells on their thickness. It discusses an extension of the analytical model of Fischer and Plagwitz to ultrathin solar cells. The thinnest cells are most prone to such damage and could have suffered from multiple measurements. Thinner cells are obviously more sensitive to the change in the contact pitch due to the strong influence of the rear side passivation. At present, most industrial silicon cells have a thickness of 250–350µm, but with better surface passivation and light trapping, their optimal thickness would be much lower. Using the Fischer–Plagwitz–Brendel modelling, a loss analysis and an optimization of the point contact pitch was performed. This model is applied to a wide range of experimental data and combined with an empirical formula for the estimation of the fill factor.
