Progress on thin silicon-on-ceramic solar cells

AstroPower is employing Silicon-Film/sup TM/ technology toward the development of an advanced thin-silicon-based, photovoltaic module product. This module combines the design and process features of advanced thin-silicon solar cells, is light trapped, and integrated in a low-cost monolithic interconnected array. This advanced product design includes the following features: silicon layer grown on a low-cost ceramic substrate; a nominally 50 micron thick silicon layer with minority carrier diffusion lengths exceeding 100 microns; light trapping due to back-surface reflection and random texturing; back surface passivation. These features, combined with manufacturing that uses relatively low-cost capital equipment, continuous processing and a low-cost substrate, will lead to high performance, low-cost photovoltaic panels.