Role of electric field and electrode material on the improvement of the ageing effects in hydrogenated amorphous silicon solar cells

Data supporting the role of electric field and electrode material on the improvement of the ageing effects in hydrogenated amorphous silicon solar cells

“…To study the degradation of our solar cells under light soaking and, consequently, to define a reference baseline, we have analyzed the effect of light soaking stress under short circuit conditions on all the major solar cell parameters/figures of merit. As expected, under this condition it is observed an increasing solar cell degradation as a function of stress time, and the degradation rate is an increasing function of the incident light intensity [1] , [7] ( Fig. 2 ).…”

“…We now show how the application of a strong reverse bias during the light soaking dramatically changes the wear out kinetics. Table 1 reports data of the major solar cell parameters/figures of merit as function of the stress time observed by applying a fixed reverse bias of −12 V under a light exposure with AM1.5G spectrum at 1.5 equivalent suns [1] . By observing the values, it is evident that the solar cell characteristics under the reverse bias stress are improving as the stress time increases.…”

“…It is believed not to be an extrinsic effect, but rather a basic phenomenon related to the nature of a­Si:H and to the stability and motion of H­related species in the a­Si:H lattice. This work has been designed in support of the research article entitled “Role of electric field and electrode material on the improvement of the ageing effects in hydrogenated amorphous silicon solar cells” in Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells (Scuto et al [1] ), which discusses an electrical method based on reverse bias stress to improve the solar cell parameters, and in particular the effect of temperature, electric field intensity and illumination level as a function of the stress time. Here we provide a further set of the obtained experimental data results.…”

Light-induced performance increase of silicon heterojunction solar cells

“…However, recently Scuto et al reported improved performance of reversely biased thin-film a-Si:H modules under prolonged illumination. 46 This is an important observation for our work, because the capping of intrinsic a-Si:H buffer layers with doped over-layers also moves their Fermi-level closer to one of the band edges. 37 Taking these arguments together, it is tempting to conclude that shifting the Fermi-level close to either conduction or valence band may revert the SWE from an electronic degradation to an improvement process.…”

Reversible Efficiency Variation of Tandem Amorphous/Microcrystalline Si Photovoltaic Modules in Outdoor Operation

“…However, one of the main limitations in such a class of PV devices is the Staebler-Wronski effect, responsible for the degradation of their power conversion efficiency, within approximately the first one thousand hours of light soaking [2][3][4]. Several experimental studies [5][6][7][8][9][10] led to highlight performance instability phenomena for the mentioned devices, underling that recovery and improvement of such performance 2 of 11 are observable, by subjecting such devices (both of single-junction and tandem types) to DC reverse bias stresses under illumination, or to operation in the Maximum Power Point (MPP) under variable conditions of temperature and illumination. In particular, in our previous work [10], we had observed relevant electric performances improvements, as a systematic phenomenon, during tests performed outdoor on stabilized tandem PV minimodules working continuously in the MPP; going from morning to afternoon illumination.…”