Status, progress and challenges in high performance, stable amorphous silicon alloy based triple junction modules

Advances in intrinsic amorphous silicon and microcrystalline n-layers has resulted in triple junction solar cell modules with initial efficiencies over 11% and stabilized efficiencies of about 9%. Remarkable improvements have been made in intrinsic a-SiC:H alloys. This has led to the demonstration of p-i-n solar cells with V/sub oc/s as high as 1.04 V and fill-factors as high as 0.74. These single-junction solar cells with a-SiC:H i-layers only degrade by 13% after 1700 hours of light-soaking.<>