Study on Advanced Materials for Thin Film Solar Cells at TPRI

Abstract

As the photovoltaic (PV) industry has grown over the past decade, thin film photovoltaic is not just a cost advantage, is an attractive technology for building integration. In this paper, we present our studies in a double p-layer a-Si: H thin film solar cells and vertical oriented Si-nanowire array solar cells. The research on double p-layer a-Si: H solar cells is dedicated to p-type a-SiC and implement it as p-i buffer layer in a-Si: H solar cells by Plasma-enhanced CVD. The solar cell with a-SiC window layer perform an initial efficiency (7.40%) better than solar cell with a-Si P-layer. The solar cell with a-SiC p-i buffer layer perform 3.5% better than solar cell without buffer layer. Si-nanowire array are synthesis by using low pressure CVD technique. A vertical Si-nanowire single crystal array with diode characteristic has been obtained.