Performance of a-SiGe:H Thin-Film Solar Cells on High-Heat Dissipation Flexible Ceramic Printable Circuit Board

In this paper, a flexible ceramic printable circuit board (FCPCB) consisting aluminum (Al) metal layer and ceramic layer is used as a substrate for solar cell fabrication. A 3-layer graded bandgap hydrogenated amorphous silicon-germanium absorber and an etched Al-doped zinc oxide are applied to single-junction cell fabrication to increase the cell conversion efficiency up to 6.3%. For temperature rise test, the heat energy could easily move from Al through the ceramic layer to the air. Both high-thermal conduction and thermal dissipation lead to a low rise in substrate temperature after long illumination, and thus to a high maintenance in solar cell performance. The bending test indicates a 12.6% degradation in conversion efficiency of FCPCB cells after bending 5000 times. The FCPCB substrate with high flexibility and thermal stability demonstrates great potential of use in flexible thin-film solar cell applications.