Research About Thin Film Solar Cell

The first solar cell fabricated in American Bell Lab in1954 opens a new era of the applications of solar cell. Great efforts have been made on the development and industrialization of solar cell. Solar cell is a piece of equipment, which makes use of solar energy and is made of semiconductor. Because of its high conversion efficiency, mature producing techniques and good reliability, solar cell was firstly used in space field. Due to its high cost, the percentage of solar cell is less than one. In order to make a wide use of solar energy, to lower its cost is very necessary. However, it is a very hard task, owing to the high price of silicon material and complicated producing process. Therefore, a new solar cell, thin film solar cell, is developed. Due to its great potential of low cost, the thin film solar cell has drawn great attention of the governments and research institutes both at home and abroad. The research and industrialization of thin film solar cell in foreign countries has developed fast while the domestic research and applications are far behind because of late-start, limited conditions and lack of reference books and materials. Based on a variety of books and materials, foreign or domestic, this thesis deals with the past, present and future thin film solar cell. The writer also elaborates the working principles of solar cell and various factors that may lead to bad conversion efficiency of solar cell, emphasizes on three thin film solar cells (amorphous silicon thin film solar cell, poly silicon thin film solar cell, CuInSea thin film solar cell), analyzes their structure, photovoltaic effect, producing techniques, and conversion efficiency etc., and discusses how to reduce the effects of SW in solar cell and how to improve the conversion efficiency.