Progress in four-terminal nano-crystalline Si/amorphous Si solar cells

Author

Hu, Jian ; Dalong Zhong ; Dang, Huong ; Madan, Awn

Author_Institution

MVSystems, Inc., Golden, CO, USA

fYear

2005

Firstpage

1452

Lastpage

1455

Abstract

We report a conversion efficiency of ∼9.5% using nano-crystalline Si/amorphous Si (nc-Si/a-Si) solar cells constructed in a four-terminal (4-T) tandem junction configuration. This type of tandem junction releases the constraint of current matching from each constituent cell thus allowing the fabrication of thin film Si stable, high efficiency devices. The improvement in efficiency, in comparison with our earlier results, is due to the use of MgF₂ anti-reflection (AR) coating which reduces the reflection loss at the ITO/air interface at the front portion of the entire device.

Keywords

amorphous semiconductors; antireflection coatings; elemental semiconductors; light reflection; nanostructured materials; optical losses; semiconductor junctions; silicon; solar cells; thin film devices; ITO-air interface; MgF₂; Si; antireflection coating; conversion efficiency; current matching; four-terminal nanocrystalline Si-amorphous Si solar cells; reflection loss; tandem junction; Amorphous materials; Costs; Degradation; Fabrication; Photonic band gap; Photovoltaic cells; Semiconductor thin films; Silicon; Thin film devices; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 2005. Conference Record of the Thirty-first IEEE

ISSN

0160-8371

Print_ISBN

0-7803-8707-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.2005.1488415

Filename

1488415