PERC silicon solar cell
Célula solar de silicio PERC
- Date
- 1983-1989 · confidence high
- Place
- University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
- Credited to
- Martin Green, Andrew Blakers and the UNSW group
- Field
- Matter & energy
What it is
A silicon cell with a passivating layer on the rear face that reduces losses and raises efficiency above 22%. The passivated rear became the dominant architecture of photovoltaic modules.
The concept of passivating the rear surface was published in 1989 (Blakers et al., 22.8%); industry took until c. 2012-2015 to adopt it at scale.
What it led to
- PERC modules that dominated solar production in the 2010s
- cheaper photovoltaic solar power
- silicon efficiency records