Strategies to Enhance Thin Film Silicon Solar Cell Efficiency

Thin-film silicon solar cells are an innovative approach to utilizing solar energy. Thanks to their flexibility, lower material usage, and production cost, they have the potential to be used in a range of applications. The conversion efficiencies of thin-film silicon solar cells need to be improved to make them commercially viable. This involves...

High Voltage Multijunction Photovoltaic Devices: Current Matching and the Characterization of Low Bandgap Material Germanium Tin

A next step in the energy transition is to produce green fuels from sunlight. One way to achieve this is via high voltage photovoltaic (PV) devices which can directly drive electrolysis reactions to produce hydrogen or other chemical fuels. Group IV based multijunction (MJ) PV devices are a candidate to function as these high voltage devices.<br...

Fabrication and Analysis of a-Si:H/μc-Si:H Tandem Solar Cell on Flexible Al Substrates: A Flamingo PV Project

Our world is on its way to re-engineer the daily life based on renewable clean energy. And this multilateral attempt to combat environmental and climate change has its focus perfectly poised to embrace the infinite energy source - solar energy as an alternative. Thin-film photovoltaic technology also referred to as second-generation technology...

Development of a c-Si/nc-Si:H/a-Si:H multi-junction device with a smooth c-Si surface texture

For the continued growth of PV capacity, it will be necessary to store vast amounts of energy to overcome seasonal differences in energy generation. To this end, the conversion of electricity to liquid or gas fuels could play an important role in the future energy system. There are numerous ways to create fuels from solar energy, the...

New Methods of Texturing Crystalline Silicon For Multi-Junction Solar Cell Applications

In this thesis, two new types of crystalline silicon texturization were developed, eventually aimed to be used in a triple junction solar cell from monocrystalline silicon and two thin film silicon alloy layers. The bottom of the two thin film silicon layers is made of hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon (nc-Si:H). The current problem with this...

Enhancing Solar Energy Integration with Innovative mini-modules

As solar energy finds its way into unexpected applications such as buildings or objects, the traditional rectangle-shaped module becomes inadequate. Although traditional modules have been optimized to deliver a large amount of power, they cannot be fitted easily into a façade or a wearable. This is why, new methods for integrating solar power...

Metallization for high efficiency c-Si solar cells based on Cu-plating

To improve the performance of the high efficiency c-Si solar cells within the PVMD group several front metallization methods were investigated. The objective was to decrease the series resistance, which would lead to an increase in FF and thus efficiency. Three different cell structure are examined; i) a poly-poly cell with SiN¬x as an ARC, ii)...

Infrared optical filters for passive cooling of crystalline silicon modules

Development of four-terminal mechanically-stacked solar cells utilising hydrogenated amorphous silicon oxide (a-SiO_x:H) and crystalline silicon cells

A tremendous amount of research in improving the efficiency of the single junction crystalline silicon (c-Si) based solar cells has brought its efficiency (26.6%) close to the theoretical maximum achievable conversion<br/>efficiency (29.43%) [1–3]. Thus to further improve the efficiency, new avenues of reducing losses need to be opened up. One...

High efficiency IBC c-Si solar cells with poly-Si passivating contacts

Crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells based on the polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) passivating contact is becoming one of the most promising solar cell structures that enable high efficiency due to the minimization of metal contact recombination. The interdigitated back contact (IBC) crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells based on poly-Si...