Status review and future perspectives on mitigating light-induced degradation on silicon-based solar cells

Abstract

Silicon-based solar cells and modules currently constitute the majority of photovoltaic systems deployed globally with a market share exceeding 90%, stemming from the maturation of this technology and a rapid mass-production globally. Improving the constituent solar cells’ performance and stability under sunlight illumination has been a keen topic of research and commercial interest given the long-expected deployment periods (>20 years). One of the common issues affecting stability is the phenomenon of light-induced degradation (LID) and light and elevated temperature-induced degradation (LeTID), which leads to an undesired performance drop in solar modules and resulting financial losses. In this review, several important insights are discussed – starting with the underlying mechanism for LID and LeTID, adopting alternative p-type silicon materials, followed by a compilation of ongoing efforts aimed towards the recovery of cell performance focusing on illuminated regeneration and current injection regeneration, and finally, a critical comparison of these strategies. Overall, it is shown through the above discussions that the performance of solar cells improves significantly after the regeneration process across both p-type and n-type substrate materials as well as different solar cell architectures; thereby demonstrating the commercialization potential for the regeneration process. Future perspectives for adopting alternative silicon materials as well as the discussed regeneration tools and technologies are also presented in detail.