10.8% efficient one-square-foot-area multifunction amorphous silicon alloy photovoltaic module

Author

Banerjee, A. ; Chen, E. ; Clough, R. ; Glatfelter, T. ; Guha, S. ; Hammond, G. ; Hoffman, K. ; Hopson, M. ; Jackett, N. ; Lycette, M. ; Noch, J. ; Palmer, T. ; Parker, K. ; Rosenstein, I. ; Wolf, D. ; Xu, X. ; Yang, J. ; Younan, K.

Author_Institution

United Solar Syst. Corp., Troy, MI, USA

fYear

1993

fDate

10-14 May 1993

Firstpage

795

Lastpage

802

Abstract

Double-junction, dual-bandgap, thin-film amorphous silicon alloy photovoltaic modules of aperture area ~900 cm² have been fabricated. The n, i, p layers have been deposited by conventional RF glow-discharge techniques on textured Ag/ZnO back reflectors prepared on stainless steel substrates. The bottom cell employs a graded bandgap a-SiGe alloy i-layer, and the top cell has an a-Si alloy i layer. The encapsulated monolithic modules exhibit initial aperture-area conversion efficiency as high as 10.8%, as measured under a Spire pulsed solar simulator using a peak detector circuit. The high efficiency has been obtained by: (1) improving the “tunnel” junction characteristics between the two component cells; (2) improving the uniformity; and (3) reducing module losses

Keywords

Ge-Si alloys; amorphous semiconductors; elemental semiconductors; energy gap; p-n heterojunctions; plasma deposited coatings; plasma deposition; semiconductor device testing; semiconductor thin films; silicon; solar cells; 10.8 percent; Ag-ZnO; RF glow discharge deposition; Si; SiGe; Spire pulsed solar simulator; amorphous semiconductor; back reflectors; bottom cell; fabrication; graded bandgap; losses; peak detector circuit; solar cells; stainless steel; substrate; testing; top cell; tunnel junction characteristics; uniformity; Amorphous materials; Amorphous silicon; Apertures; Photovoltaic systems; Pulse measurements; Radio frequency; Semiconductor thin films; Silicon alloys; Solar power generation; Zinc oxide;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 1993., Conference Record of the Twenty Third IEEE

Conference_Location

Louisville, KY

Print_ISBN

0-7803-1220-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.1993.347119

Filename

347119