A Comprehensive Review on Current Performance, Challenges and Progress in Thin-Film Solar Cells

Santhosh Sivaraj, Rajasekar Rathanasamy, Gobinath Velu Kaliyannan, Hitesh Panchal (), Ali Jawad Alrubaie, Mustafa Musa Jaber, Zafar Said () and Saim Memon ()
Additional contact information
Santhosh Sivaraj: Department of Robotics and Automation, Easwari Engineering College, Ramapuram, Chennai 600089, Tamil Nadu, India
Rajasekar Rathanasamy: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kongu Engineering College, Perundurai, Erode 638060, Tamil Nadu, India
Gobinath Velu Kaliyannan: Department of Mechatronics Engineering, Kongu Engineering College, Perundurai, Erode 638060, Tamil Nadu, India
Hitesh Panchal: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Government Engineering College, Patan 384265, Gujarat, India
Ali Jawad Alrubaie: Department of Medical Instrumentation Techniques Engineering, Al-Mustaqbal University College, Hilla 51001, Iraq
Mustafa Musa Jaber: Department of Medical Instruments Engineering Techniques, Dijlah University College, Baghdad 10021, Iraq
Zafar Said: Department of Sustainable and Renewable Energy Engineering, University of Sharjah, Sharjah P.O. Box 27272, United Arab Emirates
Saim Memon: School of Engineering, Arden University, Arden House, Middlemarch Park, Coventry CV34FJ, UK

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 22, 1-34

Abstract: Due to the recent surge in silicon demand for solar modules, thin-film photovoltaic (PV) modules have a potential to penetrate the market in significant numbers. As an alternate candidate, thin film technologies in PVs have the ability to achieve better performance. The competing thin-film PV technologies have the flexibility to adapt to any sort of curvature compared to rigid solar cells (SCs). Due to the peculiar characteristics of newer solar materials, stability issues, reflection losses, advancements in electrode materials and dopant materials with a photoactive layer are current challenges driving the industrial-academic voyage of development of solar materials for the betterment of Photo-conversion Efficiency (PCE). Based on the photoactive materials used over time, SC evolution was broadly classified into first, second and third generation SCs. In this review, the basic working mechanisms, various materials used, drawbacks and stability issues of different SCs are discussed extensively. Thin film SCs tend to absorb certain elastic deformations due to their flexible nature and to a certain extent. According to the NREL efficiency chart, multi-junctional SCs exhibit enhanced efficiency as compared to the other SCs. Among the third-generation SCs, the perovskite/Si tandem architecture shows a maximum efficiency of approximately 29%. Thin film flexible SCs find application in various sectors such as automobile, defense and/or energy storage devices

Keywords: solar cells; photo-absorber materials; working mechanism; thin film solar cells (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/22/8688/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/22/8688/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:22:p:8688-:d:977679

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().