Trend topics in PV

Photovoltaics is today a stable and mature way for harvesting clean and renewable energy. Beside well stablished technologies for terrestrial and space application, like c-Si homojunction, thin films and multijunction solar cells, several new classes of devices are attracting interest. Among these the a-Si:H/c-Si (SHJ) based heterojunction solar cells are upcoming on every speech about PV due to higher cell efficiency as demonstrated by record of 26.7% by Kaneka’s Interdigitated Back Contacted IBC-SHJ cell that recently overcome historical efficiency record of 25% belonged to UNSW PERL (Passivated Emitter with Rear Locally diffused) cell since 2011. In thin film solar cells perovskite opened a new paradigm reaching in 10 years 21% efficiency starting from well addressed DSSC (Dye Sensitized Solar Cell) technologies and relatively simple production process, nevertheless material stability and low cost large are devices still need to be demonstrated. Energy gap value tunability of perovskite makes it a good candidate to fabricate tandem solar cells with c-Si or CIGS based solar cells, to overcome the single junction theoretical limit. Actually as high as 27% efficiency has been published for monolithic SHJ/perovskite tandem solar cell. Around these topics several aspects need attention for further optimization, involving TCOs, HTLs, tunnel junctions, contacts formation, texturizations and of, course, stability. In this session will be explored the aspects and technologies that constitute trend topics in photovoltaics.