Effect of temperature on crystalline silicon solar cells processed from chemical and metallurgical route

Effect of temperature on monocrystalline and multicrystalline silicon solar cells processed from chemical (EG-Si) and metallurgical (SoGM-Si) routes was investigated in the range of 280–350 K. The temperature coefficients of important parameters related with the cell property were discussed. Experimental results indicate that the T-coefficient of conversion efficiency (η) of multicrystalline EG-Si cell processed from chemical is only 68% that of the monocrystalline EG-Si cell. Furthermore, the η of both types of SoGM-Si cells decrease much less than that of the EG-Si cells with the increase in temperature. Additionally, the recombination fraction, the minority carrier lifetime, the carrier mobility decrease and the band-gap shrinkage were also investigated to reveal the intrinsic temperature dependence mechanism. In order to confirm the results, we used numerical simulation software AMPS-1D (analysis of microelectronic and photonic structure in one dimension program) to simulate the temperature dependence of solar cell performances. The results of numerical simulation were basically consistent with the experimental results.