SBIR Phase I: Significantly High-Efficiency a-Si Photovoltaic Cell

小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目旨在开发高效的光伏电池（又名太阳能电池），用于清洁能源发电的商业应用。传统的太阳能电池在转换效率上存在局限性，基本上是结构依赖。例如，硅晶太阳能电池为~18%，非晶硅（a-Si）基太阳能电池为10%。利用成熟的、易于制造的、可以使用低成本基板（如玻璃）制造的材料系统来开发太阳能电池是必要的。第一阶段计划的目标是利用玻璃基板进行转换效率为25%的硅太阳能电池的研究和开发。设计、性能模拟和参数优化将在第一阶段活动期间进行。所提出的高效a-Si太阳能电池结构在下一代商业应用中具有广泛的应用前景。根据美国能源部（DOE）最近的一份报告，目前全球所有商业应用的太阳能电池市场规模为70亿美元，预计每年将以40%的速度增长，到2014年将达到390亿美元。商业应用包括住宅应用（入网/离网）、工业应用（入网和离网）和消费产品（如手机、pda）。

The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project seeks to develop significantly high-efficiency photovoltaic-cells (a.k.a. solar-cells) for clean electrical energy generation commercial applications. Conventional solar cell has the limitation in conversion efficiency, basically structured dependent. For example, it is ~18% for Si-crystal and 10% for amorphous-Si (a-Si) based Solar cell. It is required to develop solar cell utilizing material systems, which are matured, friendly to manufacturing, and can be fabricated using low-cost substrate (e.g. glass). A goal of the Phase I program is to carry on research and development of a-Si-solar cell for conversion efficiency of 25%, utilizing the glass-substrate. The design, performance simulation, and parameters optimization will be carried out during the Phase I activity period. The proposed high-efficiency a-Si solar cell structure is widely applicable to next generation commercial applications. According to the recent report from the US Department of Energy (DOE), today's global market for solar cells for all commercial applications is $7-billion and it is estimated to grow with 40% per year, reaching $39-billion in 2014. Commercial applications include residential applications (on-grid/off-grid), industrial applications (both on-grid and off-grid), and consumer products (e.g. cell phones, PDAs).