[{"command":"openDialog","selector":"#drupal-modal","settings":null,"data":"\u003Cdiv id=\u0022republish_modal_form\u0022\u003E\u003Cform class=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form ecl-form\u0022 data-drupal-selector=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 action=\u0022\/en\/article\/modal\/6960\u0022 method=\u0022post\u0022 id=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 accept-charset=\u0022UTF-8\u0022\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHorizon articles can be republished for free under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cp\u003EYou must give appropriate credit. We ask you to do this by:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n 1) Using the original journalist\u0027s byline\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n 2) Linking back to our original story\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n 3) Using the following text in the footer: This article was originally published in \u003Ca href=\u0027#\u0027\u003EHorizon, the EU Research and Innovation magazine\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cp\u003ESee our full republication guidelines \u003Ca href=\u0027\/horizon-magazine\/republish-our-stories\u0027\u003Ehere\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cp\u003EHTML for this article, including the attribution and page view counter, is below:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\u0022js-form-item form-item js-form-type-textarea form-item-body-content js-form-item-body-content ecl-form-group ecl-form-group--text-area form-no-label ecl-u-mv-m\u0022\u003E\n \n\u003Cdiv\u003E\n \u003Ctextarea data-drupal-selector=\u0022edit-body-content\u0022 aria-describedby=\u0022edit-body-content--description\u0022 id=\u0022edit-body-content\u0022 name=\u0022body_content\u0022 rows=\u00225\u0022 cols=\u002260\u0022 class=\u0022form-textarea ecl-text-area\u0022\u003E\u003Ch2\u003ERecord-breaking solar cells get ready for mass production\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018There is currently a lot of excitement about passivating contacts among the solar cell community,\u2019 said Dr Byungsul Min at the Institute for Solar Energy Research in Hamelin (ISFH), Germany. This year, the technology allowed his laboratory to set a new record efficiency of 26.1% for the kind of solar cells that dominates the photovoltaics market. Commercial solar panels currently operate with an efficiency of around 20%.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPassivating contacts consist of two thin layers of oxidised and crystallised silicon sandwiched between a solar cell and its metal contact. Speaking to a packed hall this September at the European Photovoltaics Solar Energy Conference in Brussels, Belgium, Dr Min said that the layers work by healing broken atomic bonds on the silicon surface and reducing the risk of electric charges getting trapped as they flow out of the solar cell.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe design was developed in 2013 by ISFH and the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE in Freiburg, Germany. In recent years, it has driven the energy conversion efficiency of silicon photovoltaics above 25% - a ceiling that had limited the efficiency that researchers could achieve in the lab for over a decade.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMass fabrication\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EStill, Dr Min says that few manufacturers have so far adopted passivating contacts in industry. As part of a project called \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/cordis.europa.eu\/project\/rcn\/205805_en.html\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022 rel=\u0022noopener noreferrer\u0022\u003EDISC\u003C\/a\u003E, he is now coordinating work with research institutes and equipment manufacturers across Europe to streamline their design for mass fabrication.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMaking record-setting solar cells with passivating contacts has so far required costly materials and complex laboratory techniques that Dr Min says cannot be adopted in factory assembly lines. However, by getting rid of these sophisticated approaches and substituting them with tools that are already common in the solar cell industry, the DISC consortium expects to bring down manufacturing costs for the technology.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EISFH has notably replaced an expensive and highly conductive indium-containing layer that is deposited on the cell surface to better collect electrical charges out of the passivating contact. By fine-tuning pressure and temperature conditions during production, Dr Min can now form a zinc-containing layer that presents comparable physical properties while using abundant materials.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cblockquote class=\u0022tw-text-center tw-text-blue tw-font-bold tw-text-2xl lg:tw-w-1\/2 tw-border-2 tw-border-blue tw-p-12 tw-my-8 lg:tw-m-12 lg:tw--ml-16 tw-float-left\u0022\u003E\n \u003Cspan class=\u0022tw-text-5xl tw-rotate-180\u0022\u003E\u201c\u003C\/span\u003E\n \u003Cp class=\u0022tw-font-serif tw-italic\u0022\u003E\u2018We have to go to higher solar cell efficiencies.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cfooter\u003E\n \u003Ccite class=\u0022tw-not-italic tw-font-normal tw-text-sm tw-text-black\u0022\u003EDr Martin Hermle, Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, Freiburg, Germany\u003C\/cite\u003E\n \u003C\/footer\u003E\n\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDutch equipment provider Meco is swapping complex lithography steps with plating techniques that can metallise the electrical contacts of passivating contact solar cells in throughputs high enough for factory assembly lines.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOver the past year, DISC samples have shuttled across France, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands as partners play their part in an international supply line. Each laboratory adds a layer of silicon or other materials in which it specialises, gradually building up the stack of semiconductors into a functioning solar cell.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018This August, we completed our first industry-sized solar cells,\u2019 said Dr Min. \u2018They have already reached energy conversion efficiencies above 21%.\u2019 This falls within the range of solar cells on the market today.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOver the coming year, Dr Min expects that fine-tuning the layers in these factory-friendly devices will help edge their performance above that of the competition. In an industry where a difference of just half a percentage can make or break companies, a technology with a proven potential of over 25% efficiency in the laboratory offers enticing prospects for manufacturers.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018We have to go to higher solar cell efficiencies,\u2019 agreed Dr Martin Hermle, one of the pioneers of passivating contacts at Fraunhofer ISE. His research group is now developing industrial deposition methods for the solar cells produced in DISC, and developing ways of further boosting their energy conversion efficiency in another project called \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/cordis.europa.eu\/project\/rcn\/193777_en.html\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022 rel=\u0022noopener noreferrer\u0022\u003ENano-Tandem\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018The cost of solar panels is largely dictated by their surface area. If you can make cells with 30% efficiency instead of 20% or 15%, that really helps reduce the overall cost of solar energy.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cfigure role=\u0022group\u0022 class=\u0022@alignleft@\u0022\u003E\n\u003Cimg alt=\u0022Technology developed by two German institutes set a new record efficiency for solar cells of 26.1%. Image credit: Institute for Solar Energy Research in Hamelin.\u0022 height=\u0022683\u0022 src=\u0022\/research-and-innovation\/sites\/default\/files\/hm\/IMCEUpload\/Zelle-611-2016-2_web-1024x683.jpg\u0022 title=\u0022Technology developed by two German institutes set a new record efficiency for solar cells of 26.1%. Image credit: Institute for Solar Energy Research in Hamelin.\u0022 width=\u00221024\u0022\u003E\n\u003Cfigcaption class=\u0022tw-italic tw-mb-4\u0022\u003ETechnology developed by two German institutes set a new record efficiency for solar cells of 26.1%. Image credit: Institute for Solar Energy Research in Hamelin.\u003C\/figcaption\u003E\n\u003C\/figure\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E33% efficiency\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EEarlier this year, Fraunhofer ISE produced a solar cell that reached a staggering 33% efficiency. Researchers stacked a silicon solar cell that incorporated passivating contacts with two additional solar cells made of more exotic materials, based on elements in the third and fifth group of the periodic table.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018These top cells are good at absorbing blue shades of light, but they are made of comparatively rare elements, like gallium or indium, that are also slower to assemble than conventional silicon solar cells,\u2019 said Dr Hermle. \u2018If you want to compete on the mass market, you have to bring the cost of the material deposition down by about two orders of magnitude.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOne solution Nano-Tandem is exploring is to use less of them. Fraunhofer ISE has shipped silicon solar cells with passivating contacts to IBM Research Z\u00fcrich, where project partners are placing solar cells on top of them not as solid layers, but as carpets of wires barely 1000 atoms wide. Startup Sol Voltaics and Lund University in Sweden are developing a potentially cheaper way of manufacturing the nanowires, assembling them from gas molecules as they fly through a tube furnace.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENano-Tandem coordinator Professor Lars Samuelson at Lund University says that the raw materials used are expensive, but that photonic effects in them could turn their economics around. He says that, assembled wisely, manufacturers could in principle use 90% less material without much impact on the efficiency or light absorption of their solar cells.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis is the kind of innovative edge that Dr Hermle describes as crucial in keeping European research institutes at the head of solar cell technology. As the market for solar cells skyrockets into \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu\/repository\/bitstream\/JRC108105\/kjna28817enn.pdf\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022 rel=\u0022noopener noreferrer\u0022\u003E11-digit annual figures\u003C\/a\u003E, Asian competition is increasingly muscling European manufacturers out of business.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr Hermle says that passivating contacts offer an example of how European industry can remain relevant in the face of global competition. \u2018This is a technology that really came from Europe to the solar cell market,\u2019 he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThe research in this article was funded by the EU. 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