Amorphous Silicon Solar Cells.

September 16, 2021 amorphous, cells, panels, photovoltaic, silicon, solar No Comments

The word "amorphous" literally means shapeless. The silicon is not structured or crystallized on a molecular level as many other types of silicon-based solar cells are. In the past, amorphous solar cells were used for smaller-scale applications, such as pocket calculators, because their power output was relatively low.

Amorphous silicon solar cells are normally prepared by glow discharge, sputtering or by evaporation, and because of the methods of preparation, this is a particularly promising solar cell for large scale fabrication.

Because only very thin layers are required, deposited by glow discharge on substrates of glass or stainless steel, only small amounts of material will be required to make these cells. The efficiency of amorphous silicon solar cells has a theoretical limit of about 15% and realized efficiencies are now up around 6 or 7%. If efficiencies of 10% can be reached on large area thin film amorphous silicon cells on inexpensive substrates, then this would be the best approach to produce low cost electricity.

Amorphous silicon solar panels are a powerful and emerging line of photovoltaic systems that differ from crystalline silicon cells in terms of their output, structure, and manufacture. The material costs are reduced since amorphous silicon only requires about 1% of the silicon that would have been used to produce a crystalline-silicon based solar cell.

The development process of amorphous silicon solar panels has made them more flexible and lightweight, which makes the transportation and installation of the panels less risky. A flexible thin-film module renders amorphous solar cells suitable even for curved surfaces.

One of the drawbacks is the lower efficiency rate of amorphous thin-film solar cells. However, the technology is new, and efficiency rates are thought to increase with technological breakthroughs in the near future.