Photo stability Assessment in Amorphous-Silicon Solar Cells

The present status of amorphous-silicon-solar-cell research and development at CIEMAT requires the possibility to characterise the devices prepared from the point of view of their stability against sunlight exposure. Therefore a set of tools providing such a capacity has been developed. Together with an introduction to photovoltaic applications of amorphous silicon and to the photodegradation problem, the present work describes the process of setting up these tools. An indoor controlled photodegradation facility has been designed and built, and a procedure has been developed for the measurement of J-V characterisation in well established conditions. This method is suitable for all kinds of solar cells, even for those for which no model is still available. The photodegradation and characterisation of some cells has allowed to validate both the new testing facility and method. (Author) 14 refs