Research Progresses on High Efficiency Amorphous and Microcrystalline Silicon-Based Thin Film Solar Cells

Abstract

This paper reviews our research progresses of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) and microcrystalline (μc-Si:H) based thin film solar cells. It coves the three areas of high efficiency, low cost process, and large-area proto-type multi-chamber system design and solar module deposition. With an innovative VHF power profiling technique, we have effectively controlled the crystalline evolution and made uniform μc-Si:H materials along the growth direction, which was used as the intrinsic layers of pin solar cells. We attained a 9.36% efficiency with a μc-Si:H single-junction cell structure. We have successfully resolved the cross-contamination issue in a single-chamber system and demonstrated the feasibility of using single-chamber process for manufacturing. We designed and built a large-area multi-chamber VHF system, which is used for depositing a-Si:H/μc-Si:H micromorph tandem modules on 0.79-m2 glass substrates. Preliminary module efficiency has exceeded 8%.