Amorphous silicon solar cells with novel mesh substrates for concentrator photovoltaic applications

To develop multi-junction thin-film silicon concentrator photovoltaics, we have introduced a novel mesh substrate with low sheet resistance (SANTE™ substrate, developed by Cima NanoTech). In this study, we fabricated a-Si:H single junction solar cells on SANTE™ substrate and successfully improved V_oc and F.F. of a-Si:H solar cells on SANTE™ substrate with buffer layer at TCO/p interface. We have studied the light intensity dependence of PV parameters of with various i-layer thicknesses and have shown improvement of F.F. and Eff. by the effects of both low sheet resistance TCO and reducing i-layer thickness.