Thin-film solar cell

A thin-film solar cell is a second

generation solar cell that is made by
depositing one or more thin layers, or thin
film (TF) of photovoltaic material on a
substrate, such as glass, plastic or metal.
Thin-film solar cells are commercially used
in several technologies, including
cadmium telluride (CdTe), copper indium
gallium diselenide (CIGS), and amorphous
thin-film silicon (a-Si, TF-Si).
  

Thin-film solar cells, a second generation of

photovoltaic (PV) solar cells:
Top: thin-film silicon laminates being installed
onto a roof.
Middle: CIGS solar cell on a flexible plastic
backing and rigid CdTe panels mounted on a
supporting structure
 Bottom: thin-film laminates on rooftops

Film thickness varies from a few

nanometers (nm) to tens of micrometers
(µm), much thinner than thin-film's rival
technology, the conventional, first-
generation crystalline silicon solar cell (c-
Si), that uses wafers of up to 200 µm. This
allows thin film cells to be flexible, and
lower in weight. It is used in building
integrated photovoltaics and as semi-
transparent, photovoltaic glazing material
that can be laminated onto windows.
Other commercial applications use rigid
thin film solar panels (sandwiched
between two panes of glass) in some of
the world's largest photovoltaic power
stations.

Thin-film technology has always been

cheaper but less efficient than
conventional c-Si technology. However, it
has significantly improved over the years.
The lab cell efficiency for CdTe and CIGS is
now beyond 21 percent, outperforming
multicrystalline silicon, the dominant
material currently used in most solar PV
systems.[1]:23,24 Accelerated life testing of
thin film modules under laboratory
conditions measured a somewhat faster
degradation compared to conventional PV,
while a lifetime of 20 years or more is
generally expected.[2] Despite these
enhancements, market-share of thin-film
never reached more than 20 percent in the
last two decades and has been declining
in recent years to about 9 percent of
worldwide photovoltaic installations in
2013.[1]:18,19

Other thin-film technologies that are still in

an early stage of ongoing research or with
limited commercial availability are often
classified as emerging or third generation
photovoltaic cells and include organic,
dye-sensitized, and polymer solar cells, as
well as quantum dot, copper zinc tin
sulfide, nanocrystal, micromorph, and
perovskite solar cells.

History

Market-share of thin-film technologies in terms of

annual production since 1990

Thin film cells are well-known since the

late 1970s, when solar calculators
powered by a small strip of amorphous
silicon appeared on the market.
It is now available in very large modules
used in sophisticated building-integrated
installations and vehicle charging
systems.

Although thin-film technology was

expected to make significant advances in
the market and to surpass the dominating
conventional crystalline silicon (c-Si)
technology in the long-term,[3] market-
share has been declining for several years
now. While in 2010, when there was a
shortage of conventional PV modules,
thin-film accounted for 15 percent of the
overall market, it declined to 8 percent in
2014, and is expected to stabilize at 7
percent from 2015 onward, with
amorphous silicon expected to lose half of
its market-share by the end of the
decade.[4]

Materials

Cross-section of a TF cell

Thin-film technologies reduce the amount

of active material in a cell. Most sandwich
active material between two panes of
glass. Since silicon solar panels only use
one pane of glass, thin film panels are
approximately twice as heavy as
crystalline silicon panels, although they
have a smaller ecological impact
(determined from life cycle analysis).[5]
The majority of film panels have 2-3
percentage points lower conversion
efficiencies than crystalline silicon.[6]
Cadmium telluride (CdTe), copper indium
gallium selenide (CIGS) and amorphous
silicon (a-Si) are three thin-film
technologies often used for outdoor
applications.

Cadmium telluride
Cadmium telluride (CdTe) is the
predominant thin film technology. With
about 5 percent of worldwide PV
production, it accounts for more than half
of the thin film market. The cell's lab
efficiency has also increased significantly
in recent years and is on a par with CIGS
thin film and close to the efficiency of
multi-crystalline silicon as of 2013.[1]:24–25
Also, CdTe has the lowest Energy payback
time of all mass-produced PV
technologies, and can be as short as eight
months in favorable locations.[1]:31 A
prominent manufacturer is the US-
company First Solar based in Tempe,
Arizona, that produces CdTe-panels with
an efficiency of about 14 percent at a
reported cost of $0.59 per watt.[7]

Although the toxicity of cadmium may not

be that much of an issue and
environmental concerns completely
resolved with the recycling of CdTe
modules at the end of their life time,[8]
there are still uncertainties[9] and the
public opinion is skeptical towards this
technology.[10][11] The usage of rare
materials may also become a limiting
factor to the industrial scalability of CdTe
thin film technology. The rarity of tellurium
—of which telluride is the anionic form—is
comparable to that of platinum in the
earth's crust and contributes significantly
to the module's cost.[12]

Copper indium gallium

selenide

Possible combinations of Group-(XI, XIII, XVI) elements

in the periodic table that yield a compound showing
photovoltaic effect: Cu, Ag, Au – Al, Ga, In – S, Se, Te.

A copper indium gallium selenide solar cell

or CIGS cell uses an absorber made of
copper, indium, gallium, selenide (CIGS),
while gallium-free variants of the
semiconductor material are abbreviated
CIS. It is one of three mainstream thin-film
technologies, the other two being
cadmium telluride and amorphous silicon,
with a lab-efficiency above 20 percent and
a share of 2 percent in the overall PV
market in 2013.[13] A prominent
manufacturer of cylindrical CIGS-panels
was the now-bankrupt company Solyndra
in Fremont, California. Traditional methods
of fabrication involve vacuum processes
including co-evaporation and sputtering. In
2008, IBM and Tokyo Ohka Kogyo Co., Ltd.
(TOK) announced they had developed a
new, non-vacuum, solution-based
manufacturing process for CIGS cells and
are aiming for efficiencies of 15% and
beyond.[14]

Hyperspectral imaging has been used to

characterize these cells. Researchers from
IRDEP (Institute of Research and
Development in Photovoltaic Energy) in
collaboration with Photon etc.¸were able to
determine the splitting of the quasi-Fermi
level with photoluminescence mapping
while the electroluminescence data were
used to derive the external quantum
efficiency (EQE).[15][16] Also, through a light
beam induced current (LBIC) cartography
experiment, the EQE of a microcrystalline
CIGS solar cell could be determined at any
point in the field of view.[17]

As of September 2014, current conversion

efficiency record for a laboratory CIGS cell
stands at 21.7%.[18]

Amorphous silicon

Amorphous silicon (a-Si) is a non-

crystalline, allotropic form of silicon and
the most well-developed thin film
technology to-date. Thin-film silicon is an
alternative to conventional wafer (or bulk)
crystalline silicon. While chalcogenide-
based CdTe and CIS thin films cells have
been developed in the lab with great
success, there is still industry interest in
silicon-based thin film cells. Silicon-based
devices exhibit fewer problems than their
CdTe and CIS counterparts such as
toxicity and humidity issues with CdTe
cells and low manufacturing yields of CIS
due to material complexity. Additionally,
due to political resistance to the use non-
"green" materials in solar energy
production, there is no stigma in the use of
standard silicon.

Three major silicon-based module designs

dominate:
 amorphous silicon cells
amorphous / microcrystalline tandem
cells (micromorph)
thin-film polycrystalline silicon on
glass.[19]

Amorphous silicon cells

This type of thin-film cell is mostly

fabricated by a technique called plasma-
enhanced chemical vapor deposition. It
uses a gaseous mixture of silane (SiH4)
and hydrogen to deposit a very thin layer
of only 1 micrometre (µm) of silicon on a
substrate, such as glass, plastic or metal,
that has already been coated with a layer
of transparent conducting oxide. Other
methods used to deposit amorphous
silicon on a substrate include sputtering
and hot wire chemical vapor deposition
techniques.[20]

a-Si is attractive as a solar cell material

because it's an abundant, non-toxic
material. It requires a low processing
temperature and enables a scalable
production upon a flexible, low-cost
substrate with little silicon material
required. Due to its bandgap of 1.7 eV,
amorphous silicon also absorbs a very
broad range of the light spectrum, that
includes infrared and even some
ultraviolet and performs very well at weak
light. This allows the cell to generate
power in the early morning, or late
afternoon and on cloudy and rainy days,
contrary to crystalline silicon cells, that are
significantly less efficient when exposed
at diffuse and indirect daylight.[21]

However, the efficiency of an a-Si cell

suffers a significant drop of about 10 to 30
percent during the first six months of
operation. This is called the Staebler-
Wronski effect (SWE) – a typical loss in
electrical output due to changes in
photoconductivity and dark conductivity
caused by prolonged exposure to sunlight.
Although this degradation is perfectly
reversible upon annealing at or above
150 °C, conventional c-Si solar cells do not
exhibit this effect in the first place.

Its basic electronic structure is the p-i-n

junction. The amorphous structure of a-Si
implies high inherent disorder and
dangling bonds, making it a bad conductor
for charge carriers. These dangling bonds
act as recombination centers that severely
reduce carrier lifetime. A p-i-n structure is
usually used, as opposed to an n-i-p
structure. This is because the mobility of
electrons in a-Si:H is roughly 1 or 2 orders
of magnitude larger than that of holes, and
thus the collection rate of electrons
moving from the n- to p-type contact is
better than holes moving from p- to n-type
contact. Therefore, the p-type layer should
be placed at the top where the light
intensity is stronger, so that the majority of
the charge carriers crossing the junction
are electrons.[22]

Tandem-cell using a-Si/μc-Si

A layer of amorphous silicon can be

combined with layers of other allotropic
forms of silicon to produce a multi-
junction solar cell. When only two layers
(two p-n junctions) are combined, it is
called a tandem-cell. By stacking these
layers on top of one other, a broader range
of the light spectra is absorbed, improving
the cell's overall efficiency.

In micromorphous silicon, a layer of

microcrystalline silicon (μc-Si) is
combined with amorphous silicon,
creating a tandem cell. The top a-Si layer
absorbs the visible light, leaving the
infrared part to the bottom μc-Si layer. The
micromorph stacked-cell concept was
pioneered and patented at the Institute of
Microtechnology (IMT) of the Neuchâtel
University in Switzerland, and is currently
licensed to TEL Solar. A new world record
PV module based on the micromorph
concept with 12.24% module efficiency
was independently certified in July
2014.[23]

Because all layers are made of silicon,

they can be manufactured using PECVD.
The band gap of a-Si is 1.7 eV and that of
c-Si is 1.1 eV. The c-Si layer can absorb red
and infrared light. The best efficiency can
be achieved at transition between a-Si and
c-Si. As nanocrystalline silicon (nc-Si) has
about the same bandgap as c-Si, nc-Si can
replace c-Si.[24]

Tandem-cell using a-Si/pc-Si

Amorphous silicon can also be combined
with protocrystalline silicon (pc-Si) into a
tandem-cell. Protocrystalline silicon with a
low volume fraction of nanocrystalline
silicon is optimal for high open-circuit
voltage.[25] These types of silicon present
dangling and twisted bonds, which results
in deep defects (energy levels in the
bandgap) as well as deformation of the
valence and conduction bands (band
tails).

Polycrystalline silicon on glass

A new attempt to fuse the advantages of

bulk silicon with those of thin-film devices
is thin film polycrystalline silicon on glass.
These modules are produced by
depositing an antireflection coating and
doped silicon onto textured glass
substrates using plasma-enhanced
chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). The
texture in the glass enhances the
efficiency of the cell by approximately 3%
by reducing the amount of incident light
reflecting from the solar cell and trapping
light inside the solar cell. The silicon film is
crystallized by an annealing step,
temperatures of 400–600 Celsius,
resulting in polycrystalline silicon.
These new devices show energy
conversion efficiencies of 8% and high
manufacturing yields of >90%. Crystalline
silicon on glass (CSG), where the
polycrystalline silicon is 1–2 micrometres,
is noted for its stability and durability; the
use of thin film techniques also
contributes to a cost savings over bulk
photovoltaics. These modules do not
require the presence of a transparent
conducting oxide layer. This simplifies the
production process twofold; not only can
this step be skipped, but the absence of
this layer makes the process of
constructing a contact scheme much
simpler. Both of these simplifications
further reduce the cost of production.
Despite the numerous advantages over
alternative design, production cost
estimations on a per unit area basis show
that these devices are comparable in cost
to single-junction amorphous thin film
cells.[19]

Gallium arsenide thin film cells

The semiconductor material gallium

arsenide (GaAs) is also used for single-
crystalline thin film solar cells. Although
GaAs cells are very expensive, they hold
the world record for the highest-efficiency,
single-junction solar cell at 28.8%.[26] GaAs
is more commonly used in multi-junction
solar cells for solar panels on spacecrafts,
as the industry favours efficiency over cost
for space-based solar power
(InGaP/(In)GaAs/Ge cells). They are also
used in concentrator photovoltaics, an
emerging technology best suited for
locations that receive much sunlight, using
lenses to focus sunlight on a much
smaller, thus less expensive GaAs
concentrator solar cell.

Emerging photovoltaics
An experimental silicon based solar cell developed at
the Sandia National Laboratories

The National Renewable Energy

Laboratory (NREL) classifies a number of
thin-film technologies as emerging
photovoltaics—most of them have not yet
been commercially applied and are still in
the research or development phase. Many
use organic materials, often
organometallic compounds as well as
inorganic substances. Despite the fact
that their efficiencies had been low and
the stability of the absorber material was
often too short for commercial
applications, there is a lot of research
invested into these technologies as they
promise to achieve the goal of producing
low-cost, high-efficient solar cells.

Emerging photovoltaics, often called third

generation photovoltaic cells, include:

Copper zinc tin sulfide solar cell (CZTS),

and derivates CZTSe and CZTSSe
Dye-sensitized solar cell, also known as
"Grätzel cell"
 Organic solar cell
Perovskite solar cell
Polymer solar cell
Quantum dot solar cell

Especially the achievements in the

research of perovskite cells have received
tremendous attention in the public, as their
research efficiencies recently soared
above 20 percent. They also offer a wide
spectrum of low-cost
applications.[27][28][29] In addition, another
emerging technology, concentrator
photovoltaics (CPV), uses high-efficient,
multi-junction solar cells in combination
with optical lenses and a tracking system.
Efficiencies

Solar cell efficiencies of various cell technologies as

tracked by NREL

Incremental improvements in efficiency

began with the invention of the first
modern silicon solar cell in 1954. By 2010
these steady improvements had resulted
in modules capable of converting 12 to 18
percent of solar radiation into
electricity.[30] The improvements to
efficiency have continued to accelerate in
the years since 2010, as shown in the
accompanying chart.

Cells made from newer materials tend to

be less efficient than bulk silicon, but are
less expensive to produce. Their quantum
efficiency is also lower due to reduced
number of collected charge carriers per
incident photon.

The performance and potential of thin-film

materials are high, reaching cell
efficiencies of 12–20%; prototype module
efficiencies of 7–13%; and production
modules in the range of 9%.[31] The thin
film cell prototype with the best efficiency
yields 20.4% (First Solar), comparable to
the best conventional solar cell prototype
efficiency of 25.6% from Panasonic.[32][33]

NREL once predicted that costs would

drop below $100/m2 in volume production,
and could later fall below $50/m2.[34]

A new record for thin film solar cell

efficiency of 22.3% has been achieved by
solar frontier the world's largest cis solar
energy provider. In joint research with the
New Energy and Industrial Technology
Development Organization (NEDO) of
Japan, Solar Frontier achieved 22.3%
conversion efficiency on a 0.5 cm2 cell
using its CIS technology. This is an
increase of 0.6 percentage points over the
industry's previous thin-film record of
21.7%.[35]

Absorption
Multiple techniques have been employed
to increase the amount of light that enters
the cell and reduce the amount that
escapes without absorption. The most
obvious technique is to minimizing the top
contact coverage of the cell surface,
reducing the area that blocks light from
reaching the cell.
The weakly absorbed long wavelength
light can be obliquely coupled into silicon
and traverses the film several times to
enhance absorption.[36][37]

Multiple methods have been developed to

increase absorption by reducing the
number of incident photons being
reflected away from the cell surface. An
additional anti-reflective coating can cause
destructive interference within the cell by
modulating the refractive index of the
surface coating. Destructive interference
eliminates the reflective wave, causing all
incident light to enter the cell.
Surface texturing is another option for
increasing absorption, but increases
costs. By applying a texture to the active
material's surface, the reflected light can
be refracted into striking the surface again,
thus reducing reflectance.For example,
black silicon texturing by reactive ion
etching(RIE) is an effective and economic
approach to increase the absorption of
thin-film silicon solar cells.[38] A textured
backreflector can prevent light from
escaping through the rear of the cell.

In addition to surface texturing, the

plasmonic light-trapping scheme attracted
a lot of attention to aid photocurrent
enhancement in thin film solar cells.[39][40]
This method makes use of collective
oscillation of excited free electrons in
noble metal nanoparticles, which are
influenced by particle shape, size and
dielectric properties of the surrounding
medium.

In addition to minimizing reflective loss,

the solar cell material itself can be
optimized to have higher chance of
absorbing a photon that reaches it.
Thermal processing techniques can
significantly enhance the crystal quality of
silicon cells and thereby increase
efficiency.[41] Layering thin-film cells to
create a multi-junction solar cell can also
be done. Each layer's band gap can be
designed to best absorb a different range
of wavelengths, such that together they
can absorb a greater spectrum of light.[42]

Further advancement into geometric

considerations can exploit nanomaterial
dimensionality. Large, parallel nanowire
arrays enable long absorption lengths
along the length of the wire while
maintaining short minority carrier diffusion
lengths along the radial direction.[43]
Adding nanoparticles between the
nanowires allows conduction. The natural
geometry of these arrays forms a textured
surface that traps more light.

Production, cost and market

Global PV market by technology in 2013.[44]:18,19

   multi-Si (54.9%)
   mono-Si (36.0%)
   CdTe (5.1%)
   a-Si (2.0%)
   CIGS (2.0%)
With the advances in conventional
crystalline silicon (c-Si) technology in
recent years, and the falling cost of the
polysilicon feedstock, that followed after a
period of severe global shortage, pressure
increased on manufacturers of
commercial thin-film technologies,
including amorphous thin-film silicon (a-
Si), cadmium telluride (CdTe), and copper
indium gallium diselenide (CIGS), leading
to the bankruptcy of several companies.[45]
As of 2013, thin-film manufacturers
continue to face price competition from
Chinese refiners of silicon and
manufacturers of conventional c-Si solar
panels. Some companies together with
their patents were sold to Chinese firms
below cost.[46]

Market-share

In 2013 thin-film technologies accounted

for about 9 percent of worldwide
deployment, while 91 percent was held by
crystalline silicon (mono-Si and multi-Si).
With 5 percent of the overall market, CdTe
holds more than half of the thin-film
market, leaving 2 percent to each CIGS
and amorphous silicon.[1]:18–19

CIGS technology
Several prominent manufacturers
couldn't stand the pressure caused by
advances in conventional c-Si
technology of recent years. The
company Solyndra ceased all business
activity and filed for Chapter 11
bankruptcy in 2011, and Nanosolar, also
a CIGS manufacturer, closed its doors in
2013. Although both companies
produced CIGS solar cells, it has been
pointed out, that the failure was not due
to the technology but rather because of
the companies themselves, using a
flawed architecture, such as, for
example, Solyndra's cylindrical
substrates.[47] In 2014, Korean LG
 Electronics terminated research on CIGS
restructuring its solar business, and
Samsung SDI decided to cease CIGS-
production, while Chinese PV
manufacturer Hanergy is expected to
ramp up production capacity of their
15.5% efficient, 650 mm×1650 mm
CIGS-modules.[48][49] One of the largest
producers of CI(G)S photovoltaics is the
Japanese company Solar Frontier with a
manufacturing capacity in the gigawatt-
scale.[50] (Also see List of CIGS
companies).

CdTe technology
The company First Solar, a leading
manufacturer of CdTe, has been building
several of the world's largest solar
power stations, such as the Desert
Sunlight Solar Farm and Topaz Solar
Farm, both in the Californian desert with
a 550 MW capacity each, as well as the
102-megawatt Nyngan Solar Plant in
Australia, the largest PV power station in
the Southern Hemisphere,
commissioned in 2015.[51]
In 2011, GE announced plans to spend
$600 million on a new CdTe solar cell
plant and enter this market,[52] and in
2013, First Solar bought GE's CdTe thin-
film intellectual property portfolio and
 formed a business partnership.[53] In
2012 Abound Solar, a manufacturer of
cadmium telluride modules, went
bankrupt.[54]

a-Si technology

In 2012, ECD solar, once one of the

world's leading manufacturer of
amorphous silicon (a-Si) technology,
filed for bankruptcy in Michigan, United
States. Swiss OC Oerlikon divested its
solar division that produced a-Si/μc-Si
tandem cells to Tokyo Electron
Limited.[55][56] In 2014, the Japanese
electronics and semiconductor
company announced the closure of its
micromorph technology development
program.[57] "Micromorph" was the
commercial name for a solar tandem
cell using a microcrystalline silicon layer
above the amorphous layer (a-Si/µ-Si).
Other companies that left the
amorphous silicon thin-film market
include DuPont, BP, Flexcell, Inventux,
Pramac, Schuco, Sencera, EPV Solar,[58]
NovaSolar (formerly OptiSolar)[59] and
Suntech Power that stopped
manufacturing a-Si modules in 2010 to
focus on conventional silicon solar
panels. In 2013, Suntech filed for
bankruptcy in China.[60][61] In August
2013, the spot market price of thin-film
 a-Si and a-Si/µ-Si dropped to €0.36 and
€0.46, respectively[62] (about $0.50 and
$0.60) per watt.[63]

Awards
Thin-film photovoltaic cells were included
in Time Magazine's Best Inventions of
2008.[64]

See also
List of photovoltaics companies
Plasmonic solar cell

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External links
Asia: a magnet for thin film .
Flexcellence , a STReP financed by the
Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) of
 the EU. Full title : Roll-to-roll technology
for the production of high-efficiency low
cost thin-film silicon photovoltaic
modules.
CrystalClear , an Integrated Project
funded in FP6.

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