Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha Corporation

Kenji Wada

Masafumi Shimizu

Takashi Inamasu

Ryotatsu Otsuka

Hiroshi Yamamoto

Toshiaki Fukuyama

The disclosure is directed to a method for purifying metals, which can very efficiently and inexpensively eliminate impurity elements included in various metallic or semiconductor materials, or more specifically included in metallurgical grade silicon.

Method of purifying metal

A thin film solar cell comprises a p-layer, an i-layer and an n-layer formed in this order as a pin junction on a substrate in which the p-layer and the i-layer are thin silicon films each containing a crystalline component, and the p-layer contains p-type impurities of 0.2 to 8 atom % and has a thickness of 10 to 200 nm.

Thin film solar cell and method of manufacturing the same

A thin-film solar cell comprises a set of a transparent conductive layer and a photoelectric conversion layer laminated in this order on a substrate, wherein the photoelectric conversion layer is made of a p-i-n junction, the i-layer is made of a crystalline layer and the transparent conductive layer is provided with a plurality of holes at its surface of the side of the photoelectric conversion layer, each of said holes having irregularities formed on its surface.

Thin-film solar cell and its manufacturing method

An n-type polysilicon thin film, an intrinsic polysilicon thin film and a p-type polysilicon thin film are formed on a transparent conductive film of a glass substrate by the plasma enhanced CVD method at a plasma excitation frequency of 81.36 MHz so as to obtain a photoelectric conversion layer. The n-type polysilicon thin film and the intrinsic polysilicon thin film are then formed so that the crystallization ratio of the n-doped layer located on the incident light side becomes equal to or greater than the crystallization ratio of the intrinsic layer. Thus, a thin film solar cell having an appropriate structure of a junction interface between the n-layer and the intrinsic layer is obtained.

Growing community of inventors

Takarazuka, Japan

Kenji Wada