Iceberg-like pyramids in industrially textured silicon enabled 33% efficient perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells

The pursuit of higher-efficiency solar cells has spurred the integration of perovskite materials with silicon-based technologies, yet achieving an efficient tandem architecture that leverages industrially textured silicon (ITS) with pyramid sizes larger than 2 μm remains a significant challenge. Such textured surfaces complicate the uniform coverage of the subsequent hole-selective layer deposition and the high-quality deposition of perovskites, ultimately causing significant contact losses in tandem devices. This study presents a tandem solar cell architecture that employs localized submicron contacts, enabled by silica (SiOX) nanospheres, to effectively regulate silicon substrate surfaces that exhibit iceberg-like pyramids. This architecture facilitates the complete coverage of solution-processed perovskites on ITS substrates while substantially reducing interfacial recombination losses and enhancing charge carrier transport. Consequently, the developed tandem solar cells demonstrate certified power conversion efficiencies of up to 33.15% in a one square centimeter area, along with improved device stability. The realization of tandem solar cells with industrially textured silicon with pyramid sizes larger than 2 μm remains a significant challenge. Here, the authors create iceberg-like pyramids to facilitate complete coverage of perovskites on substrates, achieving certified device efficiency of 33.15%.