A Comprehensive Review on Thin Film Amorphous Silicon Solar Cells

In the last few years the need and demand for utilizing clean energy resources has increased dramatically. Energy received from sun in the form of light is a sustainable, reliable and renewable energy resource. This light energy can be transformed into electricity using solar cells (SCs). Silicon was early used and still as first material for SCs fabrication. Thin film SCs are called as second generation of SC fabrication technology. Amorphous silicon (a-Si) thin film solar cell has gained considerable attention in photovoltaic research because of its ability to produce electricity at low cost. Also in the fabrication of a-Si SC less amount of Si is required. In this review article we have studied about types of a-Si SC namely hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) SC and hydrogenated amorphous silicon germanium(a-SiGe:H) SC. This article also reviews about various techniques adopted to improve the efficiency and performance of a-Si SC, stability issues in a-Si SC as well its recent developments.