Up-Scaling Process of Thin Film Silicon Solar Cells and Modules in Industrial PECVD KAI Systems

Amorphous silicon p-i-n solar cells and modules have been developed in small R&D KAI reactors. Test cells of 0.25 mm thick i-layer exceed 10% initial efficiencies and stabilized ones of 8.2%. The a-Si:H deposition process is successfully transferred to industrial size substrates of 1.4 m2 area resulting in initial module powers of 106.4 W using a commercial TCO front AFG and, recently, 104.1 W using in-house developed LPCVD front ZnO. For both modules our in-house LPCVD ZnO has been applied as back contact. The former large-area module passed successfully the damp-heat test. Entirely microcrystalline p-i-n cells with an efficiency of 8.5% could be prepared in a single-chamber KAI-S reactor. Micromorph tandems resulted in initial cell efficiencies of 10.7%, whereas minimodules lead to initial aperture efficiencies of 10.2%.