Some major results of the Fourth Annual Conference on Effects of Lithium Doping on Silicon Solar Cells

Lithium doped silicon solar cells having dimensions as large as 12 sq cm are now possible, due to significantly improved boron-diffusion techniques. A large increase was observed in the short circuit current measured in tungsten light for cells that were fabricated using the improved diffusion techniques as compared with previous cells, indicating a preservation of minority carrier diffusion length in the base region of the former cells. Sintering of the contacts of lithium doped cells fabricated from Lopex silicon resulted in large increases in maximum power, mostly due to an open circuit voltage improvement, over non-sintered cells. Efficiencies as high as 12.8% were observed, with the average efficiency being about 11.9%.