Amorphous silicon solar cells on textured aluminium substrate prepared by electrical etching

✍ Scribed by Tokumi Mase; Hiroshi Takei; Makoto Konagai; Kiyoshi Takahashi

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1986
• Weight: 821 KB
• Volume: 17
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0379-6787
• DOI: 10.1016/0379-6787(86)90012-8

✦ Synopsis

Aluminium plates of textured surface, prepared by electrical and chemical etching, were used as a substrate for amorphous Si (a-Si) solar cells. The a-Si films were deposited on a concave structured surface by the plasma CVD method. The thickness of the films appeared to be uniform even at the bottom of the concavity and at the sharp edge of the slope. The surface reflectance of the ceils on the textured A1 substrate with an indium-tin oxide (ITO) film was 6% max. at wavelengths from 400 to 800 nm while that of the cells on the mirror surface was 25% max. Thus the textured A1 substrate was found to be suitable for an a-Si solar cell substrate and conversion efficiencies of 7.2% and 8.0% were achieved by the cell structures p(SiC)-i-n/sub and n(mc)-i-p/sub respectively.