perovskite-silicon tandem cells

Oxford PV CEO David Ward spoke with pv magazine about the prospects of its company and the perovksite-silicon tandem PV technology at the WFES event in Abu Dhabi. He said Oxford PV is expanding manufacturing beyond Germany while focusing on global licensing partnerships.

National University of Singapore scientists claim that vapor-deposited perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells built on industrial silicon wafers achieve both high efficiency and long-term thermal stability, addressing a central barrier to commercial deployment.

JinkoSolar says it has increased the efficiency rating for its perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells from 34.22% to 34.76%, confirmed by China’s National PV Metric & Testing Center (NPVM).

Researchers at the German research institute have demonstrated that the so-called EpiWafers could be used directly for solar cell fabrication without needing a pre-gettering step. Their experiments provide a proof of principle* for epitaxially grown silicon wafers from German wafer manufacturer NexWafe GmbH.

A research team in Iran has designed a four-terminal perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells with a 19.3%-efficient bottom heterojunction cell and a 12.7%-efficient perovskite top cell. Both subcells were conceived to have interdigitated back contacts, with the top cell reportedly helping to improve the tandem device’s light-trapping and efficiency.

The cell utilizes a heterojunction device as the bottom cell and a perovskite top cell integrating a hole transport layer made of nickel(II) oxide and methyl-substituted carbazole.

The Japanese manufacturer said its tandem cell utilizes a top perovskite solar cell with an efficiency of 22.4% and 81% infrared transmittance.

Researchers in China have fabricated a perovskite-silicon tandem solar cell that utilizes an indium oxide sputtering buffer layer to protect the perovskite absorber and the electron transport layer from potential damages arising from the electrode deposition process. The new layer not only ensured this protection but also showed strong optical and electrical properties.

A Saudi-Chinese research team has fabricated a perovskite-silicon tandem solar cell without a hole transport layer (HTL) in the perovskite top cell. This innovative strategy, based on the co-deposition of copper(I) thiocyanate and perovskite in the top cell absorber, was intended at solving typical issues of HTLs in tandem devices.

The perovskite-silicon tandem device has a two terminal configuration and a 2D perovskite layers at the bottom interface. It was able to retain around 80% of its initial efficiency for 1,700 h.