Cell performance of a-Si:H translucent solar cells with various buffers utilizing light reflected by a backside mirror

a-Si:H translucent solar cells with various n/i- buffer layers were fabricated. We employed single buffer and double buffers with different thickness in the fabrication of translucent cells. Compared to the cell without n/i- buffers, cell efficiency increases from 5.7% to 6.5% when double buffer layers were used. For further increase of cell efficiency for translucent cells, a backside mirror that reflects the transmitted light was installed and re-absorption of the reflected light was feasible. Interestingly, it was revealed that the thin double buffered cell was the most effective configuration, acquiring approximately 21% higher efficiency. Proper design of optical thickness and arrangement of buffer layers is required to effectively utilize incident and reflected light.