Solar Cells

Photovoltaics:
Fundamental concepts and novel systems

First practical photovoltaic cell:

Chapin, Fuller, Pearson,
Bell Labs, 1954: 6% efficiency
What is the Photovoltaic Effect?
In 1839, while experimenting with an electrolytic cell made up of two
metal electrodes, a French experimental physicist named Edmund
Becquerel, only nineteen years old at the time, discovered that when
exposing certain materials to sunlight he could generate a weak
electrical current.

He named this phenomenon the \"photovoltaic effect\". The

photovoltaic effect is the basic process in which a solar cell converts
sunlight into electricity.
When photons are absorbed by a photovoltaic cell, which contains
a semiconducting material such as silicon the energy from the
photon is transfered to an electron in an atom of the \"solar cell\".

The energized electron is then able to escape its bond with the
atom and generates an electric current.

This leaves behind a \"hole\". Combined with a P-N junction,

which is a layer within the photovoltaic cell that is formed by the
intimate contact of P-type and N-type semiconductors that create
an electric field, holes move in the opposite direction from
electrons, thereby producing an electric current.
Conventional solar cells are called photovoltaic cells. These cells are made out of
semiconducting material, usually silicon.

The energy conversion consists of absorption of light (photon) energy producing

electron–hole pairs in a semiconductor and charge carrier separation. A p–n junction is
used for charge carrier separation in most cases.

The process was discovered as early as 1839. Silicon wafers are doped and the electrical
contacts are put in place to connect each solar cell to another. The resulting silicon disks
are given an anti-reflective coating
 Doping of semiconductors

Si Si Si Si Si Si
Si Si
Si Si Si Si Si As Si Si
B C N
Al Si P
Si Si Si Si Si Si Si Si
Si Si Si Si Si Si Si Si Ga Ge As

E
Free electrons in CB
          
EC EF = Fermi level (~electrochemical
++++++++++++ potential of electrons
As5+ ---> 4e-+ e-
EG 1.1 eV
donors (ND)
n-type

EV
 Doping of semiconductors -2

Si Si Si Si Si Si Si Si
Si Si Si Si Si B Si Si B C N
Al Si P
Si Si Si Si Si Si Si Si
Si Si Si Si Si Si Si Si Ga Ge As

EC DE = kTln(ND/NC)

1018
1 e- energy

p-type 1016
1010
0 or
ND=NA
EF
     
Free holes
  
EV
B3+ ---> 3e- - e- in VB
Acceptors (NA)
1954

2014

Chapin
Fuller
Pearson
 Solar cell generations

Si (crystalline) cells : 1st generation cells

(thin film) CdTe, CIGS, α-Si : 2nd generation cells

Dye cells, organic cells and related ones : 3rd generation cells
Conventional solar cells have two main drawbacks:

They can only achieve efficiencies around ten percent and their
expensive manufacturing cost.

The first drawback, inefficiency, is almost unavoidable with

silicon cells. This is because the incoming photons, or light, must
have the right energy, called the band gap energy, to knock out an
electron.

 If the photon has less energy than the band gap energy then it
will pass through. If it has more energy than the band gap, then
that extra energy will be wasted as heat. These two effects alone
account for the loss of around 70 percent of the radiation energy
incident on the cell
One of the biggest disadvantages of solar energy is the high cost
associated with manufacturing solar cells, especially when
compared to the cost of utilizing coal and gas for energy.
Furthermore, modern solar cells can lose as much as 10% of acquired power
as a result of direct optical loses, since the surface of these cells will reflect
anywhere between 2% - 10% of incoming sunlight. Nanotechnology offers the
ability to solve this problem.

Current solar cells cannot convert all the incoming light into usable energy
because some of the light can escape back out of the cell into the air.

Lower energy light passes through the cell unused. Higher energy light does
excite electrons to the conduction band, but any energy beyond the band gap
energy is lost as heat.

If these excited electrons aren’t captured and redirected, they will
spontaneously recombine with the created holes, and the energy will be lost as
heat or light
How can nanotechnology improve solar cells

Many nanostructured materials are now being investigated for their potential
applications in photovoltaic.

Reduced manufacturing costs as a result of using a low temperature process

similar to printing instead of the high temperature vacuum deposition process
typically used to produce conventional cells made with crystalline semiconductor
material.

Reduced installation costs achieved by producing flexible rolls instead of rigid

crystalline panels
Nano-structured layers in thin film solar cells offer three important
advantages.

First, due to multiple reflections, the effective optical path for absorption is
much larger than the actual film thickness.

Second, light generated electrons and holes need to travel over a much
shorter path and thus recombination losses are greatly reduced.

As a result, the absorber layer thickness in nanostructured solar cells can be as

thin as 150 nm instead of several micrometers in the traditional thin film solar
cells.

Third, the energy band gap of various layers can be tailored to the desired
design value by varying the size of nano-particles. This allows for more design
flexibility in the absorber and window layers in the solar cells.

Third-generation photovoltaics are thin, light and semitransparent and come

in different colors. Furthermore, nanotechnology enables printing of flexible
solar power panels with endless applications.
Improving the Efficiency of Solar Cells by Using Semiconductor Quantum
Dots (QD)

One of the starting point for the increase of the con-version efficiency of
solar cells is the use of semiconductor quantum dots (QD).

By means of quantum dots, the band gaps can be adjusted specifically to

convert also longer- wave light and thus increase the efficiency of the solar
cells.

These so called quantum dot solar cells are, at present still subject, to basic
research. As material systems for QD solar cells, III/V semiconductors and
other material combinations such as Si/Ge or Si/Be Te/Se are considered.

Potential advantages of these Si/Ge QD solar cells are:

1) Higher light absorption in particular in the infra-red spectral region,
2) Compatibility with standard silicon solar cell production (in contrast to
III/V semiconductors),
3) Increase of the photo current at higher temperatures,
4) Improved radiation hardness compared with conventional solar cells.
Unlike conventional materials in which one photon generates just one
electron, quantum dots have the potential to convert high-energy photons into
multiple electrons.

Quantum dots work the same way, but they produce three electrons for every
photon of sunlight that hits the dots.

Electrons moves from the valance band into the conduction band The dots also
catch more spectrums of the sunlight waves, thus increasing conversion
efficiency to as high as 65 percent.

Another area in which quantum dots could be used is by making so-called a

hot carrier cells.

Typically the extra energy supplied by a photon is lost as heat, but with a hot
carrier cells the extra energy from the photons result in higher-energy
electrons which in turn leads to a higher voltage
Reduction of the Cost of Solar Cells by Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology might be able to increase the efficiency of solar cells, but the
most promising application of nanotechnology is the reduction of manufacturing
cost.
Chemists at the University of California, Berkeley, have discovered a way to make
cheap plastic solar cells that could be painted on almost any surface.

Picture of a solar cell, which utilizes nanorods to convert light into electricity

The new plastic solar cells utilize tiny nanorods dispersed within in a
polymer. The nanorods behave as wires because when they absorb light of a
specific wave-length they generate electrons.
These electrons flow through the nanorods until they reach the aluminum
electrode where they are combined to form a current and are used as
electricity.

This type of cell is cheaper to manufacture than conventional ones for

two main reasons. First, these plastic cells are not made from silicon,
which can be very expensive.

Second, manufacturing of these cells does not require expensive

equipment such as clean rooms or vacuum chambers like conventional
silicon based solar cells.

Instead,these plastic cells can be manufactured in a beaker.

Another potential feature of these solar cells is that the nanorods could be
‘tuned’ to absorb various wave-lengths of light.

This could significantly increase the efficiency of the solar cell because
more of the incident light could be utilized