The Chinese manufacturer said its 2-terminal 34.76% efficient lab-scale perovskite-silicon tandem cell is based on heterojunction technology and developed through a collaboration of Solarlab Aiko Europe, Aiko’s headquarters and its R&D in Yuwi, China.
Solarlab Aiko Europe, a Germany-based research unit of Chinese back-contact (BC) module manufacturer Aiko, presented an update on its perovskite-silicon tandem solar cell research based on two-terminal (2T) and three-terminal (3T) tandem configurations at the Become PV 2025 conference in Brussels, organized by the European Energy Research Alliance Joint Program Photovoltaic Solar Energy earlier this month.
With a focus on record-breaking efficiency and scalable manufacturing solutions for perovskite-silicon tandem research, the latest laboratory-scale 2T perovskite-silicon tandem cell achieved an energy conversion efficiency of 34.76%, according to Bhaskar Singh, R&D team leader at Solarlab Aiko Europe, based in Freiburg, Germany.
The tandem, which featured a heterojunction silicon bottom cell (HJT), was developed in collaboration with researchers from Aiko headquarters and the state-of-the-art Yiwu R&D line. Interface engineering and material passivation methods were used to reduce efficiency losses and improve stability. No further details have been released.
The potential of 2T monolithic tandem devices depends on compatibility with existing silicon solar panel manufacturing processes. “At Solarlab Aiko, we focus not only on the efficiency of tandem devices, but also on their long-term stability and scalable processing,” Singh said. pv magazine.
While 2T tandems offer simplicity and manufacturability, 3T tandem cells offer an exciting alternative with greater flexibility and yield improvement, said Singh, who highlighted that one of the challenges with 2T tandem cells is the current coordination between subcells. This is in contrast to 3T designs, which “allow independent power extraction, making them less sensitive to spectral conditions” and better suited to bifacial applications.
In addition to independent power consumption and potentially higher energy yield through bifaciality, 3T has a third advantage: “greater flexibility in module design to enable more efficient use of materials and lower costs.”
Early test results of a proof-of-concept 3T perovskite-silicon tandem technology based on Aiko’s All Back Contact (ABC) cell indicate higher energy yields and lower electricity costs, the company said.
Aiko is continuously conducting research in this direction at its sites in Freiburg, Yiwu and Zhuhai. Solarlab Aiko Europe was part of a research project that combined PERC cells with a perovskite cell made by the Dutch consortium Solliance to create a 27.7% device in 2021.
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