Silicon Concentrator Solar Cells: Fabrication, Characterization and Development of Innovative Designs

This work presents the design, realization and characterization of high efficiency Silicon photovoltaic cells for concentration applications. In order to develop high efficient Si concentrator solar cells two different ways have been followed. The first one aims to optimize the design and the fabrication process of a conventional front-side contacted cell, based on a planar n-p junction. Although this cell structure is rather simple and cheap to produce, we show that a conversion effciency higher than 23% can be reached under concentrated light, if the cell design and the fabrication process are suitably optimized. The second way aims to investigate and propose completely new cell designs which use some 'three-dimensional' structures, such as deep-grooved contacts and through-silicon vertical connections. The new cell designs allow to overcome some intrinsic limits of the conventional front-side contacted cells and could be worthwhile to improve the conversion eciency in future real applications.