Recent progress in silicon solar cells

The present paper reports two recent independently confirmed results for silicon solar cell efficiency. An improved efficiency for an individual silicon cell of 24.5% is reported, the highest ever, as is 19.8% efficiency for a multicrystalline silicon cell, the latter representing a 6.5% relative improvement over the previously best result. Not only does the latter result for this relatively low quality material closely approach the 20% efficiency mark, once thought to be a limit on silicon cell performance regardless of multicrystalline material quality, but it also shows the potential for such multicrystalline material exceeding the performance capacity of standard crystalline Czochralski material.