Impact of spectral effects on the electrical parameters of multijunction amorphous silicon cells

Betts, T.R. and Jardine, C.N. and Gottschalg, R. and Infield, D.G. and Lane, K. (2003) Impact of spectral effects on the electrical parameters of multijunction amorphous silicon cells. In: 3rd World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, 2003-05-11 - 2003-05-18, Osaka.

Abstract

The influence of spectral variation on the efficiency of single-, double- and triple-junction amorphous silicon cells has been investigated. The average photon energy (APE) proves to be a useful device-independent environmental parameter for quantifying the average hue of incident spectra. Single-junction devices increase in efficiency as light becomes blue shifted, because more of the incident spectrum lies within the absorption window and less in the red/infra-red tail; this is denoted the primary spectral effect. Double- and triple-junction devices also exhibit a secondary spectral effect due to mismatch between the device structure and the incident spectrum. These both reach a maximum efficiency, which drops off as light is red or blue shifted. The effect is more pronounced for triple-junction than double-junction devices, as mismatch between junctions is statistically more likely.

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