Improve solar cell performance of high-performance multicrystalline silicon seeded with low-cost compact nucleation layer

In order to further improve the quality of high efficiency multicrystalline silicon and the performance of multicrystalline silicon solar cells, we designed a compact nucleation layer on the crucible bottom for casting high performance multicrystalline silicon ingots. The morphology of nucleation grains, the minority carrier lifetime mappings and the defects were analyzed and compared with that of the conventional nucleation layer. The results show that the initial nucleation grains of the compact nucleation layer were finer and more uniform, and there are fewer grains with high defect density at the ingot bottom，which is beneficial to reduce the defect ratio of the whole ingot. Moreover, the solar cell efficiency and electrical performance parameters, such as Rsh was also discussed. It was found that the Rsh has a great impact on the efficiency of multi-busbars solar cells, and the average solar cell conversion efficiency of the wafers grown with the compact nucleation layer is 0.11% higher than that of the wafers grown with the conventional nucleation layer.