Effect of Laser Cutting Procedures on Overall Performance of N-Type TOPCon Silicon Solar Cells

Today, as the most well-developed photovoltaic (PV) technology, silicon-based solar cells still dominate the PV market. In order to further maximize the power output of the PV modules, it is vital to cut the full solar cells into half-size cells. An increase of 3% in overall power output can often be seen for the half-cell PV modules. However, the solar cell splitting process, which is usually conducted by laser cutting, inevitably causes structural damage and power conversion efficiency loss to the cut cells. The overall performance of the cut solar cell is greatly dependent on the laser cutting scenario. How the laser cutting parameters, such as cutting technique and cutting direction influence the performance of the solar cell is still under debate. In this work, commercial efficient N-type TOPCon solar cells were subjected to laser scribe and mechanical cleaving and thermal laser separation from different cutting side, respectively, to comprehensively investigate the effect of laser cutting procedures on the overall performance of the cells.