backside contact. Fig. 2 shows a cross-sectional diagram of such a cell. Swanson believes this design can be further optimized to 29% efficiency. Since most recent SPS studies quote silicon solar cell efficiencies of 14.34-15.75% [6] the use of high efficiency point-contact solar cells would result is considerable weight and hence cost savings. It may be possible to fabricate such a solar cell system in space using the techniques arrived at in this paper. The most difficult step would be the fabrication of an array of holes in an insulating layer. This is typically done using a photoresist mask and a wet chemical etch, both of which violate our special fabrication constraints.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTU5NjU0Mg==