Undoped zinc oxide (ZnO) has been grown by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition at atmospheric pressure. After post-deposition exposure to near-ultraviolet light, a low value of resistance (15 Ω/sq) is achieved in films that are highly transparent (90 %) in the visible range. ZnO is used as front electrode in Cu(InGa)Se2 solar cells achieving an efficiency of 15.4%, similar to reference cells with a sputtered Al:ZnO electrode.

Computer-based simulations were performed on radial pn junction silicon nanorod and microrod solar cells to find optimized geometric dimensions and explore the effects of different types of contact configurations. A top contact configuration rendered superior to a wrapped contact configuration within the chosen set of material parameters. Maximization of cell efficiency assuming Lambert–Beerian absorption led to optimized rod radii in the 1-μm range and to optimized rod lengths in the 100-μm range for top contact configuration.

In this work, CdTe/CdS solar cells in substrate configuration were developed, and the results on different combinations of back contact materials are presented. A Cu-containing back contact buffer layer of MoO₃, Te, and Cu leads to remarkably high V_OC and fill factor of 768 mV and 68.6%, respectively, yielding 11.3% conversion efficiency. With a Cu-free MoO₃/Te buffer material, a V_OC of 733 mV, a fill factor of 62.3%, and an efficiency of 10.0% efficiency could be achieved.

The influence of the thickness of atomic layer deposited Zn1-xSnxOy buffer layers and the presence of an intrinsic ZnO layer on the performance of Cu(In,Ga)Se₂ solar cells are investigated. Both the open circuit voltage and the fill factor values are found to be thickness dependent, where a highest conversion efficiency of 18.0 % is obtained for a cell with a Zn1-xSnxOy layer thickness of approximately 13 nm.

The behaviour of a 20-cell InGaP/In_0.01GaAs/Ge multi-junction concentrator system was simulated in 5-min intervals over an entire year with agreement within 2% between measured and modelled annual energy yields. Air mass, aerosol optical depth and precipitable water have been identified as the atmospheric parameters with the largest impact on system efficiency.

In this paper, a detailed exergetic analysis based on the variation of meteorological parameters was performed for a solar power generation system. The air psychrometric analysis, under this case study, showed that air density varies from site to site and monthly as well (1.152–1.228 kg/m³), affecting the energy productivity. It was found that for the proposed PV park, production is 3.2% higher compared with what would happen if this parameter was neglected.

A process to fabricate a parallel connection dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) module has been developed using commercially available materials and screen printed silver grid. The process is not only simple but also easy to manipulate and therefore facilitates researchers in evaluating new materials in a module platform. By changing the design of the silver grid pattern, it was found that the performance of DSSC modules can be controlled, and a 7% conversion efficiency can be reached.

Wafer quality is extremely important in determining yield and efficiency of solar cells. Ideally, this wafer quality should be determined for incoming wafers before solar cell fabrication based on the electronic quality of the wafers. This paper compares results from quasi-steady-state photoconductance lifetime measurements with photoluminescence (PL) imaging pattern recognition. A detailed physical picture is presented here that reconciles contradictions between previous results. The trends in voltage prediction based on measured lifetime, doping, and PL-determined dislocation densities are shown.

The impact of lateral nonuniform carrier lifetime on the determination of the lifetime from photoconductance-based measurements, based on the self-consistent method, is investigated. It is shown that the method can result in an overestimation of the mean lifetime, with the magnitude of the error mainly dependent on the distribution of the effective lifetime across the area sensed by the photoconductance coil. The error can be eliminated through independent measurement of the sample optical properties. Experimental measurements confirm the model predictions.

In this research, it was found that ZnO nanowire (NW) enhances the conversion efficiency by 6.92%, as compared with the conventional triple-junction (TJ) solar cell. In contrast, SiN_x and TiO₂/Al₂O₃ antireflection coatings only enhance the conversion efficiency by 3.72% and 6.46% increase, respectively. Compared with the unencapsulated ZnO NW TJ cell, it was found that J_sc of the encapsulated TJ cell with ZnO NW increased by 0.41 mA/cm². The encapsulated results suggested that cell with ZnO NW could provide the best electrical performances.

We have designed and fabricated dye solar cell (DSC) Z-type modules with optimized geometries and materials. Through optimization of the layout of the modules using PSPICE simulations, the multilayer combination and treatments of the TiO₂ active layers, and the fabrication processes, a conversion efficiency of 6.9% on the 43-cm² aperture area and 9.4% on the active area was achieved. This result confirms that an effective scale-up of opaque high-performance Z-series-connected DSC modules, all realized with commercially available materials, can be accomplished.

The first prototype of the hybrid CPV-T ANU-Chromasun micro-concentrator (MCT) has been installed at The Australian National University (ANU, Canberra, Australia). The results of electrical and thermal performance of the MCT system, including instantaneous and full-day monitoring, show that combined efficiency of the system can exceed 70%. Over the span of a day, the average electrical efficiency was 8% and the average thermal efficiency was 50%.

A texture foil attached to the substrate glass of solar cells surpasses the maximum efficiency gains achievable by anti-reflective coatings. The photograph shows the substructure of the scattering foil on top of a reflecting silicon wafer. Besides the anti-reflex effect, the texture enhances the internal light-trapping.