Thin film photovoltaic development at Phillips Laboratory

Various political and economic forces have, in the last three years, driven the Air Force to reassess its space power generation technologies. In the area of photovoltaics, increasing emphasis is being placed on material, production, and life cycle costs in order to increase the “economic survivability” of systems. In response to these new priorities, Phillips Laboratory is directing a three phase program designed to evaluate, improve and make available to the user community, an advanced thin film solar cell capable of replacing state of the art solar cells while reducing overall costs. This paper describes the work that has already taken place and outlines the future direction of the program