Small pyramidal textured ultrathin crystalline silicon solar cells with double-layer passivation

Ultrathin crystalline silicon solar cells are a promising technology roadmap to achieve more cost effectiveness. However, experimental reports on ultrathin crystalline silicon cells with thickness less than 20 µm are rare. Here, we experimentally fabricate and investigate ultrathin monocrystalline silicon solar cells consisting of 16 µm-silicon base thickness and low-cost front random pyramidal texture with the feature size of 1-2 µm. The normalized light absorption is calculated to explain the measured external quantum efficiency. The achieved efficiency is 15.1% for the single-layer passivated textured solar cell. In addition, via double-layer passivation of Al₂O₃/SiN_x, the efficiency is further increased to 16.4% for the best textured cell, which significantly improves the absolute efficiency with Δη = 1.3%.