Very thin crystalline silicon cells: A way to improve the photovoltaic performance at elevated temperatures

In general, the conversion efficiency of solar cells decreases with the increase in temperature. This temperature dependence is mitigated by enhancing the open circuit voltage (VOC). Given a solar cell, its VOC can be enhanced by several routes, for example, reducing the defect density within the absorber, applying passivating contacts, and reducing the absorber thickness. In this work, we investigate the impact of wafer thickness in crystalline silicon (c‐Si) solar cells from the viewpoint of the photovoltaic performance at elevated temperatures. It is confirmed experimentally that the VOC of c‐Si solar cells increases by thinning the Si wafer, for example, VOC ≥ 0.75 V is obtained at a wafer thickness of