Amorphous silicon solar cell circuit board

Are amorphous silicon-based solar cells a good choice?

The use of amorphous silicon in the silicon-based solar cells is the most recent and an emerging technology these days. It is a cost-efficient approach and offers the great flexibility. The only disadvantage of amorphous silicon-based solar cells is the reduced efficiency and poor performance.

How efficient are amorphous solar cells?

The overall efficiency of this new type of solar cell was 7.1–7.9% (under simulated solar light), which is comparable to that of amorphous silicon solar cells .

How are amorphous silicon solar cells made?

Amorphous silicon solar cells are normally prepared by glow discharge, sputtering or by evaporation, and because of the methods of preparation, this is a particularly promising solar cell for large scale fabrication.

Why do amorphous solar cells have a higher absorption than crystalline solar cells?

The amorphous silicon solar cell has a much higher absorption compared to the crystalline silicon solar cell because of its disorder in the atomic structure. The optical transitions are perceived as localized transitions, thus increasing the efficiency for optical transitions.

When did amorphous silicon solar cells come out?

Amorphous silicon solar cells were first introduced commercially by Sanyo in 1980 for use in solar-powered calculators, and shipments increased rapidly to 3.5 MWp by 1985 (representing about 19% of the total PV market that year). Shipments of a-Si PV modules reached ~40 MWp in 2001, but this represented only about 11% of the total PV market.

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.