Recent Issues and Configuration Factors in Perovskite-Silicon Tandem Solar Cells towards Large Scaling Production

Abstract

The unprecedented development of perovskite-silicon (PSC-Si) tandem solar cells in the last five years has been hindered by several challenges towards industrialization, which require further research. The combination of the low cost of perovskite and legacy silicon solar cells serve as primary drivers for PSC-Si tandem solar cell improvement. For the perovskite top-cell, the utmost concern reported in the literature is perovskite instability. Hence, proposed physical loss mechanisms for intrinsic and extrinsic instability as triggering mechanisms for hysteresis, ion segregation, and trap states, along with the latest proposed mitigation strategies in terms of stability engineering, are discussed. The silicon bottom cell, being a mature technology, is currently facing bottleneck challenges to achieve power conversion efficiencies (PCE) greater than 26.7%, which requires more understanding in the context of light management and passivation technologies. Finally, for large-scale industrialization of the PSC-Si tandem solar cell, the promising silicon wafer thinning, and large-scale film deposition technologies could cause a shift and align with a more affordable and flexible roll-to-roll PSC-Si technology. Therefore, this review aims to provide deliberate guidance on critical fundamental issues and configuration factors in current PSC-Si tandem technologies towards large-scale industrialization. to meet the 2031 PSC-Si Tandem road maps market target.

Keywords: perovskite-silicon; roll-to-roll; solar cell; stability; tandem.

Figure 2

PCE (%) as a function of the area in cm² for certified PSC-Si tandem solar cell for various structures since 2016–2020 shown in the navy-blue color zone margins. The lowest right coroner represents uncertified 2018 released by University of Sydney (USYD)-Australia [64]. The figure shows current PCE-Area and research/future trends in the colored arrows. Data has been extracted from solar cell efficiency tables (49–57) available at www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com.

Figure 5

Generic and fragmented silicon solar cell technologies cross-section schematics (The surface morphology may vary from flat surface/partially textured to the fully textured surface) From Left to right (a) PERC technology, middle (b) SHJ technology and (c) IBC. All structures and materials are for an explanatory purpose reprinted from [186], Copyright (2016), with permission from Elsevier (Not to Scale). (Note: in PERC structure, back metal contact in the black color is intended to diffuse through insulator via local BSF layer).

Figure 6

An illustration of the Generic 2T perovskite silicon tandem major loss mechanisms with each set of layers light spectrum absorbance adapted from various literature (The surface morphology may vary from flat surface/partially textured to the fully textured surface). The purple circles represent the modified ICL layer (i.e., nanocrystalline materials). [Reprinted/Adapted] with permission from [ref [219]] © The Optical Society.

Figure 1

PSC-Si 4T (left) and 2T (right) simple schematic diagram.

Figure 3

Illustration of the certified various perovskite cell and multi-cells, (a) the efficiency trend, the inset shows real minimodules produced by Toshiba [81]; (b) the area of the corresponding cells for the same period for higher cells area, and the inset represents the corresponding thin film (various) small area graph. Some data points in Figure 3 coincide with each other. Data are obtained from solar cell efficiency tables (42–57) available at www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com.

Figure 4

Schematic diagram of (a) the simple interplay between extrinsic and intrinsic perovskite performance degradation mechanisms with blue line arrows. The consequence of direct and indirect chain reactions is represented in red and green arrows, respectively. Hysteresis symbolic graph is depicted from Ref. [127]. (b) Summarizes the various perovskite engineering methods adopted in Table 4.

Figure 7

Schematic diagram of (a) A way forward towards PCS-Si tandem vast industrialization and the work required Table 2. T- PSC-Si based on roll-roll technology integration with existing silicon solar cell technology as part of the overall roadmap in (b).

Figure 7

Schematic diagram of (a) A way forward towards PCS-Si tandem vast industrialization and the work required Table 2. T- PSC-Si based on roll-roll technology integration with existing silicon solar cell technology as part of the overall roadmap in (b).