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Polycrystalline Silicon Thin Film

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Handbook of Photovoltaic Silicon

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Abstract

By eliminating the costly steps of Si wafer, polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) thin film solar cells become the very promising candidates for cost-effective photovoltaics in the future. In order to maintain the high efficiency character of crystalline silicon (c-Si) wafer-based solar cells, competitive material qualities and appropriate device structures are required for poly-Si thin film solar cells on inexpensive substrates. Low cost fabrication processes are also demanded from the point of view of industrial production.

In the past few decades, a wide variety of poly-Si thin film solar cell approaches have been investigated to improve device performance and to identify suitable technology to boost poly-Si thin film solar cells towards competitive photovoltaic devices. The efficiencies of poly-Si thin film solar cells increase gradually. However, they are still much lower than that of c-Si solar cells or other compound semiconductor thin film solar cells. More efforts are needed in the future.

This chapter reviews the technological and scientific developments in the field of poly-Si thin films and solar cells. After an introduction, basic knowledge involved in the fabrication of poly-Si thin films is presented in the first part. In the second part, seed layer and transfer techniques for poly-Si thin film solar cells are described. In the third part, suitable light trapping technology is discussed. In the fourth part, material characterization techniques and properties of poly-Si thin films are shown. In the final part, the developing status of poly-Si thin film solar cells is summarized.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Materials Science and Opto-Electronic Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Fengzhen Liu

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Yurong Zhou

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  1. Fengzhen Liu
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  2. Yurong Zhou
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Correspondence to Fengzhen Liu .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Deren Yang

Section Editor information

  1. Institute of Photoelectronic Thin Film Devices and Technology, Nankai University, Tianjin, P. R. China

    Ying Zhao

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Liu, F., Zhou, Y. (2019). Polycrystalline Silicon Thin Film. In: Yang, D. (eds) Handbook of Photovoltaic Silicon. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-52735-1_29-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-52735-1_29-1

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