Limiting efficiency of bulk and thin-film silicon solar cells in the presence of surface recombination

Calculations of the limiting efficiency of silicon solar cells generally treat surface recombination as an extrinsic parameter which can be made arbitrarily small. In the present paper, modifications to these limits for both bulk and thin film silicon solar cells are calculated for the case of finite surface recombination velocity characterized in terms of the voltage limit imposed by these recombination processes. Based on the best experimental levels of surface passivation yet demonstrated, the limiting efficiency for a 1 μm thick silicon cell is shown to be 19·8%, while that for a 400 μm thick cell is 26·2%, both under standard test conditions. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.