ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to make a quick report on a new type of amorphous silicon photovoltaic cells generating more than 2.0V. It has long been believed that there exists no structure sensitivity for the valency control in amorphous semiconductors, because amorphous materials ordinarily have a large density of localized states. For the purpose of both the antireflective coating and of decreasing series resistance loss, indium-tin-oxide films were subsequently deposited by electron-beam evaporation together with a mask-patterned electrode. From the device physics viewpoint, one of the distinctive deficiencies of hydrogenated silicon is a rather short carrier lifetime in the doped p and n layers which limit the improvement of the series resistance losses and the curve fill factor. Therefore, in order to optimize cell efficiency, the thickness of each unit cell should be chosen in order to equalize the photocurrent of all the unit cells.
