**1. Introduction**

358 Solar Cells – Thin-Film Technologies

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The microcrystalline silicon material is reported to be a quite complex material consisting of an amorphous matrix with embedded crystallites plus grain boundaries. Although this material has a complex microstructure, its optical properties have a marked crystalline characteristic: an optical gap at 1.12 eV like c-Si. This implies the spectral absorption of µc-Si:H covers a much larger range than a-Si:H which posses an optical gap between 1.6 and 1.75eVi . Compared to a-Si:H that absorbs light up to 800 nm, µc-Si:H absorbs light coming from a wider spectral range, extending up to 1100 nm . On the other hand, within its range of absorption, the absorption of a-Si:H is higher than that of µc-Si:H –due to the indirect gap of the latter. Therefore, the optical combination of these two materials takes advantage of a larger part of the solar spectrum (compared to a single-junction cell) and the conversion efficiency of the incident light into electricity can be consequently improved. Furthermore, the µc-Si:H solar cell is reported to be largely stable against light induced degradation and enhanced carrier mobility in contrast to amorphous silicon films counterpart. Consequently hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon is one of the promising materials for application to thin-film silicon solar cells.
