The BOSCO Solar Cell: Double-sided Collection and Bifacial Operation

The BOSCO - BOth Sides COllecting and COntacted - solar cell features a double-sided emitter and contact grids on both surfaces. The emitter region on the rear is connected to the front side by diffused vias. The structure allows the use of standard module interconnection technology and favours the use of silicon substrates with low to medium diffusion length and low resistivity for maximum benefit towards other structures, such as Al-BSF and PERC. Within this work, we summarize the latest results on multi-crystalline silicon (mc-Si). Monofacial efficiencies of 17.4% on large-area wafers from 9N (99.9999999% pure) block-cast mc-Si and 16.9% for low-quality 5N upgraded metallurgical-grade mc-Si have been achieved. These values represent a gain of 0.6 to 0.7%abs compared to Al-BSF cells processed in parallel. First tests of bifacial operation under outdoor conditions yield a gain in output power of 13% compared to monofacial operation. This effect makes the BOSCO solar cell concept a promising candidate to enable bifacial operation, even for low-cost wafers of low to medium diffusion length material.