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...

Improved current matching in all-silicon triple-junction solar cells for wireless photoelectrochemical devices

In a future energy system, chemical energy carriers that can easily be stored, like hydrogen, are of vital importance. One possible way of producing carbonneutral hydrogen is by direct solar to hydrogen conversion in a photoelectrochemical cell (PEC). Silicon based multijunction solar cells are a possible candidate for the photovoltaic stack of...

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...

System level analysis of advanced a-Si:H flexible and lightweight PV modules

Thin film amorphous silicon based PV systems are a rather new and promising photovoltaic technology with plenty field for technological development and potential for unique applications such as integration within the built environment. Nevertheless, in order for the technology to be established, further technical development is required and...

Trap assisted tunneling modelling for aSi contact stacks in IBC-SHJ

Interdigitated back contact silicon heterojunction (IBC-SHJ) solar cells have demonstrated 26.6\% world record efficiency by combining outstanding passivation of Si thin film layers with the absence of front shading contact in the crystalline silicon (c-Si) absorber bulk. Furthermore, this type of solar cell merges advantages of c-Si with Si...

Improving the photocurrent of a-Si:H/CIGS hybrid tandem cells by texturing ZnO:Al

To reduce the usage of Indium (rare material) in CIGS, ultra thin, high efficiency CIGS based solar devices have been developed in our group. One approach is to fabricate hybrid tandem cells between hydrogenated amorphous silicon and CIGS. Because the a-Si:H top sub-cell limits the current of such a device, it is desirable to texture the top...

Individual Cell Analysis of Micromorph Tandem Solar Cells

The aim of this study is to analyse the individual cells of a micromorph tandem solar cell by dark current-voltage characteristics and to study the e ffect of temperature on the individual subcells of the device, being amorphous silicon and microcrystalline silicon. Special focus is placed on studying the temperature-dependent voltage...

Studying the nanostructure of a-Si:h solar cell absorber layers using positrion annihilation and neutron reflectometry

Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon (a-Si:H) is a very promising solar cell material with a good potential to use in many applications, as it is cheap to produce, light-weight and flexible. However, upon prolonged exposure to light, the layers suffer from both metastable and irreversible changes (the Staebler-Wronski effect) that have a bad effect on...

Characterization of n-type Silicon Oxide for Use in Thin Film Solar Cells

This thesis studied the characteristics and applications of n-type silicon oxide (SiOx) produced through plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition were studied through. n-type SiOx has shown excellent results in various applications of solar cell technology including back reflectors and intermediate reflecting layers. These results can aid in...