The development of clean energy resources as alternatives to oiI has become one of the most important challenges for modern science and technology. The obvious motivation for these efforts is to reduce the air polIution resulting from the mass consumption of fossil fuels and to protect the ecological cycles of the biosystems on Earth. Analyses of future energy usage envision that the energy structure in the 21st century will be characterized as a "Best Mix Age" involving different renewable energy forms. Among the wide variety of renewable energy projects in progress, photo voltaics is the most promising as a future energy technology. It is pollution free and abundantly available everywhere in the world, even in space, and can also operate with diffuse light. However, a major barrier impeding the devel opment of large-scale bulk power applications of photovoltaic systems is the high price of solar cell modules. Therefore, reduction of the costs of solar celIs is of prime importance. To achieve this objective, tremendous R&D efforts have been made over the past two decades in a wide variety of technical fields ranging from solar-cell materials, cell structure, and mass production pro cesses to the photovoltaic systems themselves. As the result, about an order of magnitude cost reduction has been achieved in the past 10 years.

Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Klappentext
This is the first comprehensive book on thin-film solar cells, potentially a key technology for solving the energy production problem in the 21st century in an environmentally friendly way. It covers a wide range of scientific and technological aspects of thin film semiconductors - deposition technologies, growth mechanisms and the basic properties of amorphous and nano-crystalline silicon - as well as the optimum design theory and device physics of high-efficiency solar cells, especially of single-junction and multi-junction solar cells. The development of large-area solar cell modules using single and multi-junction solar cells is also considered. Examples of recent photovoltaic systems are presented and analysed.

Inhalt
1 Background and Motivation for Thin-Film Solar-Cell Development.- 2 Recent Advances and Future Opportunities for Thin-Film Solar Cell.- 3 Electrical and Optical Properties of Amorphous Silicon and Its Alloys.- 4 Preparation and Properties of Nanocrystalline Silicon.- 5 Key Issues for the Efficiency Improvement of Silicon-Based Stacked Solar Cells.- 6 Development of Amorphous-Silicon Single-Junction Solar Cells and Their Application Systems.- 7 The Production of a-Si:H/a-SiGe:H/a-SiGe:H Stacked Solar-Cell Modules and Their Applications.- 8 Low-Temperature Fabrication of Nanocrystalline-Silicon Solar Cells.- 9 Mass Production of Large-Area Integrated Thin-Film Silicon Solar-Cell Module.- 10 Properties of Chalcopyrite-Based Materials and Film Deposition for Thin-Film Solar Cells.- 11 Development of Cu(InGa)Se2 Thin-Film Solar Cells.- 12 Expanding Thin-Film Solar PV System Applications.- 13 Future Prospects for Photovoltaic Technologies in Japan.