How solar cells work

Semiconductor that has

been doped to produce two
different regions separated
by a p-n junction. Across
this junction,

• Electrons and holes –

are able to cross. In
doing so, they deplete
the region from which
they came and transfer
their charge to the new
region.

• Migration of charge
results in a potential
gradient

• sunlight strikes a solar cell,

atoms are bombarded with
particles of light called
photons, and give up Simplified operation of a solar cell.
electrons. Image source: US Dept of Energy

• When an electron is kicked out of an atom, it leaves behind a hole, which has an
equal and opposite (positive) charge.

• If either carrier wanders across the junction, the field and the nature of the
semiconductor material discourage it from recrossing.

• A proportion of carriers that cross the junction can be harvested by completing a

circuit from a grid on the cell's surface to a collector on the backplane. In the cell,
the light "pumps" electrons out one side of the cell, through the circuit, and back
to the other side, energizing any electrical device that is connected along the
way.

The current generated in the semiconductor is extracted by contacts at the top

and bottom of the cell. The top contact structure, which must allow light to pass
through, is made of thin, widely-spaced metal strips (usually called fingers) that
supply current to a larger bus bar. The cell is covered with a thin layer of
dielectric material – the anti-reflection coating – to minimize light reflection from
the top surface.

Characteristics of a solar cell

The usable voltage that a solar cell produces depends on what semiconductor
material it's made from. In the case of silicon-based cells, the output is
approximately 0.5 V. Although the current increases with increasing luminosity,
the terminal voltage is only weakly dependent on the amount of light falling on
the cell. A 100 cm2 silicon cell generates a maximum current of about 2 A when
radiated by 1000 W/m2.

Different types of solar cell

There are three main types of solar cells, which are distinguished by the type of
crystal used in them. They are monocrystalline, polycrystalline, and amorphous.
To produce a monocrystalline silicon cell, absolutely pure semiconducting
material is necessary. Monocrystalline rods are extracted from melted silicon
and then sawed into thin plates. This production process guarantees a relatively
high level of efficiency.

The production of polycrystalline cells is more cost-efficient. In this process,

liquid silicon is poured into blocks that are subsequently sawed into plates.
During solidification of the material, crystal structures of varying sizes are
formed, at whose borders defects emerge. As a result of this crystal defect, the
solar cell is less efficient.

If a silicon film is deposited on glass or another substrate material, the result is a

so-called amorphous or thin-layer cell. The layer thickness amounts to less than
1µm – the thickness of a human hair for comparison is 50-100 µm. The
production costs of this type are lower because of the lower material costs.
However, the efficiency of amorphous cells is much lower than that of the other
two cell types. As a result, they are used mainly in low power equipment, such
as watches and pocket calculators, or as facade elements.

From cells to modules

In order to provide suitable voltages and outputs for different applications, solar
cells are connected together to form larger units. Cells connected in series have
a higher voltage, while those connected in parallel produce more current. The
interconnected solar cells are usually embedded in transparent ethylene vinyl
 acetate, fitted with an aluminum or stainless steel frame, and covered with
transparent glass on the front side to make a solar module.

Typical peak power ratings of such solar modules range from 10 W to 100 W.
The characteristic data refer to the standard test conditions of 1000 W/m2 solar
radiation at a cell temperature of 25° C (77° F). The manufacturer's standard
warranty of 10 or more years is quite long and shows the high quality standards
and life expectancy of today's products.

Monocrystalline vs Polycrystalline (Multicrystalline)

• Mono crystalline cells are cut from a chunk of silicon that has been grown from a single
crystal.
• high efficiencies - which are typically around 15%.
• A polycrystalline cell is cut from multifaceted silicon crystal.

• More surface area is required due to inherent flaws

• with average efficiencies of around 12%.

Market Share: 78 - 80%

Efficiency in Efficiency of
Material
lab (%) production cell (%)
monocrystalline
about 24 14-17
silicon
polycrystalline
about 18 13-15
silicon
amorphous silicon about 13 5-7
Thin film solar panels
• It's applied in such a way that flexible panels can be made
• Thin film panels are also less efficient that polycrystalline and monocrystalline panels.
• Larger surface area is required. Again, performance in thin film technology is constantly
improving in the area of efficiency. Given the processes to create thin film,
• Cheaper alternatives to silicon can also be used, such as cadmium telluride; although
cadmium is frowned upon by many as it's a heavy metal.

Market Share: 18 - 20%

• The most common materials -Amorphous silicon polycrystalline materials: cadmium

telluride (CdTe) and copper indium (gallium) diselenide (CIS or CIGS).
• 8% efficiency at 1cm2 scale

Each c-Si cell generates about 0.5V, so 36 cells are usually soldered together
in series to produce a module with an output to charge a 12V battery.
Thin Film Photovoltaics Advantages over
Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaics .
• Lower cost of production.
• Lower production facility cost per watt -
CapEx
• Uses as little as 1/500 of the amount used
in standard silicon cells
• Lower energy payback – amount of time
until the product produces more energy than
was utilized in its manufacture.
• Produces more power/watt
• Superior performance in hot and cloudy
climates
• Integrates seemlessly in homes and
buildings
Developing Technologies: Concentrators

• More efficiently under concentrated light.

• Using mirrors or lenses to focus light and use heat sinks, or active
cooling of the cells, to dissipate the large amount of heat that is
generated.

• Concentrator systems require direct sunlight (clear skies) and will not
operate under cloudy conditions.

• Follow the sun's path using single-axis tracking. Two-axis tracking is

sometimes used for in change in season.

• Not yet achieved widespread application in photovoltaic, but widely

used in solar thermal electricity generation technology where the
generated heat is used to power a turbine.
 • Expected future efficiencies are nearly 50%
• PV is advantageous because the solar collector is less expensive
than an equivalent area of solar cells.

• targeted to be priced well under 3 USD/Watt

• CPV could reach grid parity in 2011.

Developing Technologies: Electrochemical PV cells

• Electrochemical solar cells have their active component in a liquid

phase.
• They use a dye sensitizer to absorb the light and create electron-hole
pairs in a nanocrystalline titanium dioxide semiconductor layer. This is
sandwiched in between a tin oxide coated glass sheet (the front
contact of the cell) and a rear carbon contact layer, with a glass or foil
backing sheet.
• lower manufacturing costs in the future because of their simplicity and
use of cheap materials.
• Prototypes of small devices powered by dye-sensitised nanocrystalline
electrochemical PV cells are now appearing (120cm2 cells with an
efficiency of 7%).
 Polymer solar cells

• Polymer solar cells are a type of flexible solar cell. They can come in many forms
including: organic solar cell (also called plastic solar cell).
• That produce electricity from sunlight using polymers.
• thin-film semiconductors that can be deposited on different types of polymers to create
solar cells.
• polymer solar cells are lightweight (which is important for small autonomous sensors)
• potentially disposable and inexpensive to fabricate, flexible, and customizable on the
molecular level, and they have lower potential for negative environmental impact..

• The disadvantages of polymer solar cells are also serious: they offer about 1/3 of the
efficiency of hard materials, and they are relatively unstable toward photochemical
degradation. For these reasons, despite continuing advances in semiconducting polymers,
the vast majority of solar cells rely on inorganic materials.

Device physics

• Organic photovoltaics are made of electron donor and electron acceptor materials rather
than semiconductor p-n junctions.
• The molecules forming the electron donor region of organic PV cells, where exciting
electron-hole pairs are generated,
• These electrons can be excited by light in or near the visible part of the spectrum from
the molecule's highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) to the lowest unoccupied
molecular orbital (LUMO), denoted by a electron transition.
• The energy bandgap between these orbitals determines which wavelength of light can be
absorbed.
• Excitons(electrostatic force b/w electrons and holes) in organic photovoltaics are strongly
bound with an energy between 0.1 and 1.4 eV.
• This strong binding occurs because electronic wavefunctions in organic molecules are
more localized, and electrostatic attraction can thus keep the electron and hole together
as an exciton.
• Organic photovoltaics can be fabricated with an active polymer and a fullerene-based
electron acceptor. The illumination of this system by visible light leads to electron
transfer from the polymer chain to a fullerene molecule. As a result, fullerene becomes an
ion-radical are highly mobile along the length of the polymer chain and can diffuse away.
Architectures.

• The simplest architecture that may be used for an organic PV device is a planar
heterojunction.
• A film of active polymer (donor) and a film of electron acceptor are sandwiched between
contacts in a planar configuration.
• Excitons created in the donor region may diffuse to the junction and separate, with the
hole remaining behind and the electron passing into the acceptor.
• planar heterojunctions are inherently inefficient; because charge carriers have diffusion
lengths of just 3-10 nm in typical organic semiconductors, planar cells must be thin to
enable successful diffusion to contacts, but the thinner the cell, the less light it can
absorb.
• Bulk heterojunctions (BHJs) address this shortcoming. the electron donor and acceptor
materials are blended together and cast as a mixture that then phase-separates.
• Regions of each material in the device are separated by only several nanometers, a
distance optimized for carrier diffusion. Although devices based on BHJs are a
significant improvement over planar designs, BHJs require sensitive control over
materials morphology on the nanoscale. A great number of variables, including choice of
materials, solvents, and the donor-acceptor weight ratio can dramatically affect the BHJ
structure that results. These factors can make rationally optimizing BHJs difficult.

The next logical step beyond BHJs are ordered nanomaterials for solar cells, or ordered
heterojunctions (OHJs). This paradigm eliminates much of the variability associated with BHJs.
OHJs are generally hybrids of ordered inorganic materials and organic active regions. For
example, a photovoltaic polymer can be deposited into pores in a ceramic such as TiO2. Holes
still must diffuse along the length of the pore through the polymer to a contact, so OHJs do have
thickness limitations. Mitigating the hole mobility bottleneck will thus be key to further
enhancing OHJ device performance, but controlling morphology inside the confines of the pores
is challenging.

Engineers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) have employed "nanowires" to
boost the efficiency of organic solar cells [2].

Conclusion

• The present efficiency of polymer solar cells lies near 10 percent, much below the value
for silicon cells.
• Polymer solar cells also suffer from environmental degradation. Good protective coatings
are still to be developed.
• Work remains to be done to further improve their performance.
• Novel molecular chemistries and materials offer hope for revolutionary, rather than
evolutionary, breakthroughs in device efficiencies in the future.
Current commercial status

• Polymer solar cells are not generally produced commercially today.

• One exception is the company Konarka Technologies, which in 2008 opened a factory with
the capacity to produce a gigawatt's worth of polymer-fullerene solar cells each year.
• The initial cells from the factory are 3-5% efficient, and only last a couple years, but the
company has stated that it would eventually be able to improve both the efficiency and
durability.
• The company expects to initially sell the cells in for number of niche applications: For
example, in laptop-recharging briefcases, put into tents, umbrellas, and awnings, and as
window tinting (since the cells can be made semi-transparent).