Amorphous Silicon based Solar Cell Technologies: Status, Challenges, and Opportunities

Abstract

ABSTRACTAdvances in amorphous silicon solar cell and module development over the past two decades has led to widespread commercial application in consumer and building integrated photovoltaic applications (BIPV). The technology has taken two pathways: (i) superstrate and (ii) substrate. Both pathways have unique advantages over crystalline modules and have demonstrated promising stability and reliability with continuous improvement in performance. Multi-junction modules with amorphous and microcrystalline silicon have demonstrated initial conversion efficiencies in the range of 13%-13.5%.