Solar cells: Losses made visible on the nanoscale

Solar cells made of crystalline silicon achieve peak
efficiencies, especially in combination with selective contacts
made of amorphous silicon (a-Si:H). However, their efficiency is
limited by losses in these contact layers. Now, for the first time,
a team at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) and the University of
Utah, USA, has experimentally shown how such contact layers
generate loss currents on the nanometre scale and what their
physical origin is.