RECENT ADVANCES IN AMORPHOUS-SILICON TECHNOLOGIES AND ITS APPLICATIONTO SOLAR-CELLS

The current state of the art in amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) solar cell R & D efforts and their photovoltaic system applications are reviewed. Firstly, progress in a-Si alloy production technologies is overviewed with their significance as tire champion material for a low cost sola r cells. Secondly, some new approaches and key technologies to improve solar cell efficiency with stabilized performance by new amorphous si licon alloys and polycrystalline thin film for a-Si basis stacked sola r cells are demonstrated, in the final part of paper, progress of the conversion efficiency in various types of amorphous silicon solar cell s are surveyed and summarized.