The presented article is a report on progress in photovoltaic devices and material processing. A cadmium telluride solar cell as one of the most attractive option for thin-film polycrystalline cell constructions is presented. All typical manufacturing steps of this device, including recrystalisation and junction activation are explained. A new potential field of application for this kind of device - the BIPV (Building Integrated Photovoltaic) is named and discussed. All possible configuration options for this application, according to material properties and exploitation demands are considered. The experimental part of the presented paper is focused on practical implementation of the high- temperature polymer foil as the substrate of the newly designed device by the help of ICSVT (Isothermal Close Space Vapour Transport) technique. The evaluation of the polyester and polyamide foils according to the ICSVT/CSS manufacturing process parameters is described and discussed. A final conclusion on practical verification of these materials is also given.

The article presents an overview of polymeric materials for flexible substrates in photovoltaic (PV) structures that could be used as power supply in the personal electronic systems. Four types of polymers have been elected for testing. The first two are the most specialized and heat resistant polyimide films. The third material is transparent polyethylene terephthalate film from the group of polyesters which was proposed as a cheap and commercially available substrate for the technology of photovoltaic cells in a superstrate configuration. The last selected polymeric material is a polysiloxane, which meets the criteria of high elasticity, is temperature resistant and it is also characterized by relatively high transparency in the visible light range. For themost promising of these materials additional studies were performed in order to select those of them which represent the best optical, mechanical and temperature parameters according to their usage for flexible substrates in solar cells.

The article shows the comprehensive results of the experiments, conducted in order to select the appropriate metal layers, for back absorber contacts, to apply in flexible, thin-film photovoltaic cells based on cadmium telluride. Preliminary selection of investigated materials was made on the basis of general knowledge and physical data. Deposition techniques, as well as layer parameters, were adjusted to the specific flexible solar cell’s needs. Selected metal layers were deposited either by physical vapour deposition (PVD) or screen-printing method (SP) and tested in terms of their flexibility, thermal resistance, as well as adhesion to CdTe layer. Practical verification of selected configurations is proved by the complete construction of the device.

The paper presents the idea to improve the performance of thin film photovoltaic cells by a light capture enhancement through the introduction of down shifting energy converters. Luminescent down shifting layers convert high-energy photons (UV light) into low-energy ones (visible light), which are more efficient in a photovoltaic conversion. For this purpose, the application of a thin layer composed of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles deposited onto a thin film solar cell is proposed. The paper presents both experimental and theoretical results of this approach. Conducted investigations include an analysis of ZnO nanoparticle layers, deposited in two independent technology methods. The results showed that ZnO nanoparticles have a great potential of application as down converting layers and can be implemented to improve the efficiency of photovoltaic cells, especially in the field of thin film PV structures. The proposed new deposition method can potentially be used in some industrial photovoltaic applications.