Impressive 26.41% HJT Solar Cell Efficiency

• Maxwell has announced ISFH certification for n-type crystalline silicon HJT solar cell for 26.41% efficiency
• The efficiency was achieved on a full size M6 274.5 cm² cell using SunDrive's metallization technology that's doesn't use any silver
• They were able to improve Voc and FF of the certified cell with SunDrive optimizing its direct plating process with a seed layer to enhance aspect ratio

Chinese solar cell production equipment supplier Suzhou Maxwell Technologies has announced 26.41% power conversion efficiency for a silver free n-type crystalline silicon heterojunction (HJT) solar cell using SunDrive's metallization technology, which is close to the world's highest efficient single-junction silicon solar cell.

It is an improvement of 0.34% over 26.07% efficiency the duo reported in March 18, 2022 which was an increase from 25.84% in November 2021 and 25.54% in September 2021 (see 26.07% Efficiency Record For HJT Solar Cell). The newest claim by the duo has certification from the Institute of Solar Energy Hamelin (ISFH).

They were able to enhance the efficiency on a full size M6 274.5 cm² cell by further improving open circuit voltage (Voc) and fill factor (FF) of the certified cell. SunDrive optimized its direct plating process without a seed layer to allow electrode aspect ratio to improve to 9μm for width of the gate line and 7μm height.

Maxwell shared that the team completed PECVD process on this batch of cells on its latest generation of mass production double-sided monocrystalline equipment, optimizing the passivation layer and microcrystalline p process, while combining these with new PVD TCO process.

Mawell/SunDrive's latest HJT efficiency comes very close to the HJT record from LONGi Solar, which reported to have achieved 26.5% power conversion efficiency for its silicon heterojunction solar cell on a 274.4 cm² M6 full size monocrystalline silicon wafer in June 2022 (see 26.5% Efficiency Record For M6 Silicon HJT Solar Cell). LONGi's HJT efficiency is the highest for any M6 cell device  and comes close to the world record for any single-junction silicon solar cell from Kaneka, which produced a 26.7% efficienct HJT back contact cell in 2017, but that was a much smaller cell size of 79 cm2. Kaneka also produced a larger HJT back contact cell at 179 cm2 with 26.6% efficiency.

Only very recently, in late August 2022,  Maxwell and SunDrive reported 25.94% efficiency for HJT cell using copper-plated grid lines on M6 274.4 cm² HJT cell with no silver and less indium content (see 25.94% Efficiency HJT Cell With Copper Grid).

TaiyangNews has just published its latest report on Heterojunction Solar Technology 2022 – Entering High Volume Production, presenting the latest on this promising high efficiency cell technology, which is accessible free of charge here.