What are amorphous silicon solar cells?

Used as semiconductor material for a-Si solar cells, or thin-film silicon solar cells, it is deposited in thin films onto a variety of flexible substrates, such as glass, metal and plastic. Amorphous silicon cells generally feature low efficiency.

What are the disadvantages of amorphous silicon solar cells?

The main disadvantage of amorphous silicon solar cells is the degradation of the output power over a time (15% to 35%) to a minimum level, after that, they become stable with light . Therefore, to reduce light-induced degradation, multijunction a-Si solar cells are developed with improved conversion efficiency.

Can amorphous silicon solar cells produce low cost electricity?

The efficiency of amorphous silicon solar cells has a theoretical limit of about 15% and realized efficiencies are now up around 6 or 7%. If efficiencies of 10% can be reached on large area thin film amorphous silicon cells on inexpensive substrates, then this would be the best approach to produce low cost electricity.

Can amorphous silicon solar cells be fabricated in a stacked structure?

Amorphous silicon solar cells can be fabricated in a stacked structure to form multijunction solar cells. This strategy is particularly successful for amorphous materials, both because there is no need for lattice matching, as is required for crystalline heterojunctions, and also because the band gap is readily adjusted by alloying.

Why are amorphous Sili-Con based pin solar cells more efficient?

It is worth noting that these = conditions also apply to photoconductivity measurements that are made on isolated films of a particular material. The asymmetry in the drift of electrons and holes explains why amorphous sili-con–based pin solar cells are more efficient when illuminated through their p-layers.

Is hydrogenated amorphous silicon suitable for solar photovoltaic cells?

Hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) has a sufficiently low amount of defects to be used within devices such as solar photovoltaic cells, particularly in the protocrystalline growth regime. However, hydrogenation is associated with light-induced degradation of the material, termed the Staebler–Wronski effect.