Student research opportunities
Dicing and slicing c-Si solar cells to mitigate module losses (taken for 2015)
Project Code: CECS_1070
This project is available at the following levels:
Engn4200, Engn R&D, Honours, Summer Scholar
Please note that this project is only for undergraduate students.
Keywords:
c-Si module
Supervisor:
Dr Andrew ThomsonOutline:
One key component of c-Si module losses is the series resistance. One approach to mitigate this is to slice a standard cell by laser cutting or dicing. When sliced into n sub-cells and they are connected in series ideally the current is reduced by a factor of n and the voltage is increase by a factor of n. The series resistance power loss is reduced by n if there are no additional losses.
However, slicing cells leads to the creation of edges which are unpassivated increasing the over all recombination, counteracting the gains. There is a trade off which needs to be examined on a case by case basis.
Goals of this project
- Create a model to determine the realistic output of sliced mini modules
- Determine the surface recombination velocity of sliced, cleaved and laser cut edges
- Optimise the a single cell mini-module
