The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 04, 1990
Filed:
Mar. 13, 1989
Stanford R Ovshinsky, Bloomfield Hills, MI (US);
David Adler, Lexington, MA (US);
Energy Conversion Devices, Inc., Troy, MI (US);
Abstract
The production of improved multiple cell photovoltaic amorphous silicon devices having improved wavelength threshold characteristics is made possible by adding one or more band gap adjusting elements to the silicon alloy material in one or more cells of the device. The adjusting element or elements are added at least to the active photoresponsive regions of constituent amorphous silicon cells, which regions preferably further include at least one of fluorine and hydrogen. One adjusting element is germanium which narrows the band gap from that of the silicon alloy materials without the adjusting element incorporated thereinto. Other adjusting elements can be used, such as carbon or nitrogen to widen the band gap. The silicon and adjusting elements are concurrently combined and deposited as amorphous silicon alloys by glow discharge decomposition techniques.