Amorphous Silicon Solar Cells - Amorton

Solar cells are classified acc. to the material employed, e.g. crystal silicon, amorphous silicon and compound semiconductor
solar cells. Unlike crystal silicon, in which atomic arrangements
are regular, amorphous silicon features irregular atomic
arrangements as shown in the figures below.
Amorton is an integrated amorphous silicon solar cell which
has been developed by SANYO. Amorton uses silane (SiH4) as
its source gas and is fabricated using a plasma CVD method.
Three amorphous silicon layers - p-layer, i-layer, and n-layer -
are formed consecutively on a glass substrate. This p-i-n junction
corresponds to the p/n junction of a crystal silicon solar
cell. In the process of this junction formation, a number of cells
are connected in series on a substrate at one time. This allows
any desired voltage to be obtained for a variety of equipment
operation.