IBC-SHJ process integration for mass production

The starting point of the NextBase project was the first generation IBC cell (green star). A loss analysis revealed that energy was lost due to parasitic light absorption in the front layers (SiN and a-Si) and too high contact resistances on the rear side electrodes of the cell. Therefore, the focus was on improving the front side optics of the cell by reducing the absorption losses and improving the rear side micro-crystalline layers (red star). This yielded an increase in efficiency of roughly 5%.

The second update considerably boosted the solar cell performance further, by optimizing the masking technology developed in WP6 together with an upgrade of the rear side design, allowing a reduction of the Ohmic loss through each contacts, improving the overall efficiency.