Towards wafer quality crystalline silicon thin-film solar cells on glass

In this paper we present our latest progress in fabricating high quality crystalline silicon thin film solar cells on glass. Large silicon grains are directly formed via electron-beam induced liquid phase crystallization (LPC) from a nanocrystalline precursor film. The LPC process is carried out on an amorphous SiO2 layer, and both a high quality self-passivating interface and excellent electronic bulk properties are obtained. Solar cells with stable efficiencies of 11.5% and open-circuit voltages well above 600 mV with a maximum value of 656 mV are presented. So far, such high V-oc values have only been achieved on wafer-based silicon solar cells. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.