Extensive investigation on silicon based thin film reveals a wide range of film characteristics, from low optical gap to high optical gap, from amorphous to micro-crystalline silicon etc. Fabrication of single junction, tandem and triple junction solar cell with suitable materials, indicate that fabrication of solar cell of a relatively moderate efficiency is possible with a better light induced stability. Due to these investigations, various competing materials like wide band gap silicon carbide and silicon oxide, low band gap micro-crystalline silicon and silicon germanium etc were also prepared and applied to the solar cells. Such a multi-junction solar cell can be a technologically promising photo-voltaic device, as the external quantum efficiency of such a cell covers a wider spectral range.

A photovoltaic cell of CuPc:P3HT:PCBM was introduced to extend the light absorption in the visible wavelength between 300~500 and 550~800 nm. By fabricating the photovoltaic cells of ITO / PEDOT:PSS / CuPc:P3HT:PCBM / BCP / Al with small-molecular and polymer donating materials blended layer, we demonstrated a high PCE of 4.20% with high Jsc of $10.05mA/cm^2$. This performance of photovoltaic cell with the blended layer of small-molecular and polymer can be competitive with that of tandem cells.

$Tb^{3+}$ - or $Ce^{3+}$-doped $LaBO_3$ phosphors were synthesized by a solid-state reaction process with different concentrations of activator ions. The XRD spectra showed the monoclinic $LaBO_3$ pattern with the main peak occurring at (014) plane, irrespective of the kind of activator ions. The crystallite size was determined by using the Scherrer formula, and the maximum was obtained with an activator concentration of 0.05 mol for both phosphors. The emission spectra of $LaBO_3$ phosphors doped with $Tb^{3+}$ ions under excitation at 269 nm exhibited three major emission bands at 488, 544, and 587 nm. The strongest emission was green at 544 nm owing to the $^5D_4-^7F_5$ transition at a $Tb^{3+}$ ion concentration of 0.05 mol. For the $Ce^{3+}$-doped $LaBO_3$ phosphors, one strong blue band centered at 469 nm and weak multipeaks were observed. These results suggest that the optimum green and blue emission can be realized by controlling the concentration and type of activator ions incorporated in the host crystal.

Minority carrier diffusion length is one of the most important parameters of solar cells, especially for short circuit current density (Jsc). In this report, we proposed the calculating method of the minority carrier diffusion length ($L_n$) in CIGS solar cells through biased quantum efficiency (QE). To verify this method's reliability, we chose two CIGS samples which have different grain size and calculated $L_n$ for each sample. First of all, we calculated out that $L_n$ was 56nm and 97nm for small and large grain sized-cell through this method, respectively. Second, we found out the large grain sized-cell has about 7 times lower defect density than the small grain sized-cell using drive level capacitance profiling (DLCP) method. Consequently, we confirmed that $L_n$ was mainly affected by the micro-structure and defect density of CIGS layer, and could explain the cause of Jsc difference between two samples having same band gap.

In recent years, discoloration defects, called as snail trail, have been observed at many crystalline photovoltaic modules after a period of time ranging from several months to several years after initial installation. It has been reported that this phenomenon doesn't impact on the performance of photovoltaic modules, but it can be detected through simple visual inspection. The origin and detailed mechanism for the formation have not been identified. In this study, non-destructive analysis by Raman spectroscopy has been carried out to investigate the origin of this phenomenon. In parallel, destructive analysis by scanning electron microscopt and transmission electron microscopy was also performed in order to confirm the results from non-destructive method. Through the extensive analysis, it was found that the main cause for discoloration is the formations of $Ag_2CO_3$ and $AgC_2H_3O_2$. Detailed mechanism for the formation of these particles was indentified through systematic studies.

We investigated current-voltage (I-V) and capacitance (C)-V characteristics of solution-processed thin film solar cells, consisting of $Cu(In,Ga)S_2$ and $CuInS_2$ stacked absorber layers. The ideality factors, extracted from the temperature-dependent I-V curves, showed that the tunneling-mediated interface recombination was dominant in the cells. Rapid increase of both series- and shunt-resistance at low temperatures would limit the performance of the cells, requiring further optimization. The C-V data revealed that the carrier concentration of the $CuInS_2$ layer was about 10 times larger than that of the $Cu(In,Ga)S_2$ layer. All these results could help us to find strategies to improve the efficiency of the solution-processed thin film solar cells.

To investigate the effect of metal back-reflective layers (MBLs) on the performance of GaAs solar cells, we fabricated GaAs solar cells on Al and Ag metal layers using the transfer printing technique. We also investigated the effect of MBL texturing on the performance of transfer printed GaAs solar cells. Transfer printed solar cells with MBLs exhibited improved photovoltaic performance compared to solar cells without MBLs due to light trapping. We demonstrated GaAs solar cells with MBLs on a flexible substrate and performed systematic bending tests. All the measured characteristics of solar cells showed little change in performance.