**5. Acknowledgment**

This work was partially supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) through a Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B). The authors are

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solar cells on metallic substrates. *Thin Solid Films*, Vol. 431-432, (May 2003), pp. 392-

cells using alkali-silicate glass thin layers as an alkali source material, *Conference Record of the Thirty-Forth IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference 2009*, pp. 002349- 002353, ISBN 978-1-4244-2949-3, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, June 7-12, 2009 Kapur, V. K.; Bansal, A. Phucan L. & Asensio, O. I. (2002). Non-vacuum printing process for

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**20** 

Bolko von Roedern

*United States of America* 

**What is Happening with Regards** 

The advances and promises of thin-film photovoltaics (PV) are much discussed these days, typically using the viewpoint that a picked technology and process approach would provide "the" solution to many problems experienced implementing PV commercialization. In 2009, a thin-film PV company, First Solar, garnered world-leadership as a PV company, being the first company to produce or ship more than 1 GW of PV modules in a single year. This makes it timely to discuss the advantages and limitations of thin-film PV technology, as compared to the currently prevailing crystalline Si PV industry. Traditionally, the following

In the amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) based category, several approaches are pursued, ranging from amorphous silicon single junction modules to spectrum splitting multijunction cell structures using either a-SiGe:H cell absorbers or a-Si:H/nc-Si:H multijunctions. Pros and cons will be given for these different approaches that lead to this multitude of device structures. It is argued that as long as the advantages of the aforementioned materials are not understood, it would be difficult to "design" materials for more efficient solar cell

This review will recap what is currently known about these materials and solar cell devices, keeping in mind that there will always be some unexpected "surprises," while there were many other approaches that did not result in anticipated cell/module performance improvements. This knowledge leads the author to ask the following question: "Was improper implementation or inadequate process choice responsible for the lack of solar cell/module performance improvement, or was the expectation for improved device

The chapter of this book is written such as to not prejudge an outcome, i.e., an a priori assumption that a given measure would result in a commensurate expected performance improvement. The impact (i) of an improvement is broken down into probability (p) of achieving a projected improvement times the effectiveness (e) of such improvement, where

i=p\*e

technologies are considered constituting "thin-film PV:"

3. a-Si:H (and nc-Si:H nanocrystalline or "micromorph" silicon films)

performance or decreased device cost simply not warranted?"

2. CIGS PV (or copper-indium-gallium diselenide)

4. less than 50 micron thick crystalline Si films

**1. Introduction** 

1. CdTe PV

operation.

**to Thin-Film Photovoltaics?** 

*National Renewable Energy Laboratory* 

BASED SOLAR CELLS: PROCESSIMG OF NOVEL ABSORBER STRUCTURES, *Proceedings of the First World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion 1994*, pp. 68-75, ISBN 0-7803-1460-3, Waikoloa, Hawaii, USA, December 5-9, 1994

