scholarly journals Effect of Plasma, RF, and RIE Treatments on Properties of Double-Sided High Voltage Solar Cells with Vertically Aligned p-n Junctions

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mykola O. Semenenko ◽  
Mykhailo G. Dusheiko ◽  
Sergiy V. Mamykin ◽  
Valeriy O. Ganus ◽  
Mykhailo V. Kirichenko ◽  
...  

Si-based solar cells with vertically aligned p-n junctions operating at high voltage were designed and fabricated. The plasma treatments and antireflection coating deposition on the working surfaces of both single- and multijunction cells were made using the special holders. It was shown that additional treatment of solar cells in argon plasma prior to hydrogen plasma treatment and deposition of diamond-like carbon antireflection films led to the improvement of the cell efficiency by up to 60%. Radio frequency waves support plasma generation and improve photoelectric conversion mainly due to reduction of internal stresses at the interfaces. Application of reactive ion etching technique removes the broken layer, reduces elastic strain in the wafer, decreases recombination of charge carriers in the bulk, and provides cell efficiency increase by up to ten times.

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lingsheng Zeng ◽  
Xuegong Yu ◽  
Yangang Han ◽  
Deren Yang

Vertical silicon nanowire (Si NW) arrays on a Si (100) substrate have been prepared by using a low-cost and facile Ag-assisted chemical etching technique. The reflectance of Si NW arrays is very low (<1%) in the spectral range from 400 to 1000 nm. By phosphorus diffusion into Si NW arrays to fabricate solar cells, the power conversion efficiency of 8.84% has been achieved. This power conversion efficiency is much higher than that of the planar cell with the similar celling technology. It is found that the efficiency of Si NW solar cells is intimately associated with their excellent antireflection property. The surface recombination of Si NWs is the main obstacle for the improvement of solar cell efficiency. The current results are helpful to the advancement of the application of Si NWs in photovoltaics.


2020 ◽  
pp. 114-119

Experimental and theoretical study Porphyrin-grafted ZnO nanowire arrays were investigated for organic/inorganic hybrid solar cell applications. Two types of porphyrin – Tetra (4-carboxyphenyle) TCPP and meso-Tetraphenylporphine (Zinc-TPP)were used to modify the nanowire surfaces. The vertically aligned nanowires with porphyrin modifications were embedded in graphene-enriched poly (3-hexylthiophene) [G-P3HT] for p-n junction nanowire solar cells. Surface grafting of ZnO nanowires was found to improve the solar cell efficiency. There are different effect for the two types of porphyrin as results of Zn existing. Annealing effects on the solar cell performance were investigated by heating the devices up to 225 °C in air. It was found that the cell performance was significantly degraded after annealing. The degradation was attributed to the polymer structural change at high temperature as evidenced by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measurements.


Author(s):  
Otwin Breitenstein

Abstract The electronic properties of solar cells, particularly multicrystalline silicon-based ones, are distributed spatially inhomogeneous, where regions of poor quality may degrade the performance of the whole cell. These inhomogeneities mostly affect the dark current-voltage (I-V) characteristic, which decisively affects the efficiency. Since the grid distributes the local voltage homogeneously across the cell and leads to lateral balancing currents, local light beam-induced current methods alone cannot be used to image local cell efficiency parameters. Lock-in thermography (LIT) is the method of choice for imaging inhomogeneities of the dark I-V characteristic. This contribution introduces a novel method for evaluating a number of LIT images taken at different applied biases. By pixel-wise fitting the data to a two diode model and taking into account local series resistance and short circuit current density data, realistically simulated images of the other cell efficiency parameters (open circuit voltage, fill factor, and efficiency) are obtained. Moreover, simulated local and global dark and illuminated I-V characteristics are obtained, also for various illumination intensities. These local efficiency data are expectation values, which would hold if a homogeneous solar cell had the properties of the selected region of the inhomogeneous cell. Alternatively, also local efficiency data holding for the cell working at its own maximum power point may be generated. The amount of degradation of different cell efficiency parameters in some local defect positions is an indication how dangerous these defects are for degrading this parameter of the whole cell. The method allows to virtually 'cut out' certain defects for checking their influence on the global characteristics. Thus, by applying this method, a detailed local efficiency analysis of locally inhomogeneous solar cells is possible. It can be reliably predicted how a cell would improve if certain defects could be avoided. This method is implemented in a software code, which is available.


2020 ◽  
pp. 16-21
Author(s):  
PHITCHAPHORN KHAMMEE ◽  
YUWALEE UNPAPROM ◽  
UBONWAN SUBHASAEN ◽  
RAMESHPRABU RAMARAJ

Recently, dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) have concerned significant attention attributable to their material preparation process, architectural and environmental compatibility, also low cost and effective photoelectric conversion efficiency. Therefore, this study aimed to use potential plant materials for DSSC. This research presents the extraction of natural pigments from yellow cotton flowers (Cochlospermum regium). In addition, the natural pigments were revealed that outstanding advantages, including a wide absorption range (visible light), easy extraction method, safe, innocuous pigments, inexpensive, complete biodegradation and ecofriendly. Methanol was used as a solvent extraction for the yellow cotton flower. The chlorophylls and carotenoid pigments extractions were estimated by a UV-visible spectrometer. The chlorophyll-a, chlorophyll-b, and carotenoid yield were 0.719±0.061 µg/ml, 1.484±0.107 µg/ml and 7.743±0.141 µg/ml, respectively. Thus, this study results suggested that yellow cotton flowers containing reasonable amounts appealable in the DSSC production.


Solar Energy ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 122 ◽  
pp. 76-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sueda Saylan ◽  
Timothy Milakovich ◽  
Sabina Abdul Hadi ◽  
Ammar Nayfeh ◽  
Eugene A. Fitzgerald ◽  
...  

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (9) ◽  
pp. 2460
Author(s):  
Jian Zou ◽  
Mengnan Liu ◽  
Shuyu Tan ◽  
Zhijie Bi ◽  
Yong Wan ◽  
...  

A two-dimensional perovskite photonic crystal structure of Methylamine lead iodide (CH3NH3PbI3, MAPbI3) is rationally designed as the absorption layer for solar cells. The photonic crystal (PC) structure possesses the distinct “slow light” and band gap effect, leading to the increased absorption efficiency of the absorption layer, and thus the increased photoelectric conversion efficiency of the battery. Simulation results indicate that the best absorption efficiency can be achieved when the scattering element of indium arsenide (InAs) cylinder is arranged in the absorption layer in the form of tetragonal lattice with the height of 0.6 μm, the diameter of 0.24 μm, and the lattice constant of 0.4 μm. In the wide wavelength range of 400–1200 nm, the absorption efficiency can be reached up to 82.5%, which is 70.1% higher than that of the absorption layer without the photonic crystal structure. In addition, the absorption layer with photonic crystal structure has good adaptability to the incident light angle, presenting the stable absorption efficiency of 80% in the wide incident range of 0–80°. The results demonstrate that the absorption layer with photonic crystal structure can realize the wide spectrum, wide angle, and high absorption of incident light, resulting in the increased utilization efficiency of solar energy.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 1684
Author(s):  
Alessandro Romeo ◽  
Elisa Artegiani

CdTe is a very robust and chemically stable material and for this reason its related solar cell thin film photovoltaic technology is now the only thin film technology in the first 10 top producers in the world. CdTe has an optimum band gap for the Schockley-Queisser limit and could deliver very high efficiencies as single junction device of more than 32%, with an open circuit voltage of 1 V and a short circuit current density exceeding 30 mA/cm2. CdTe solar cells were introduced at the beginning of the 70s and they have been studied and implemented particularly in the last 30 years. The strong improvement in efficiency in the last 5 years was obtained by a new redesign of the CdTe solar cell device reaching a single solar cell efficiency of 22.1% and a module efficiency of 19%. In this paper we describe the fabrication process following the history of the solar cell as it was developed in the early years up to the latest development and changes. Moreover the paper also presents future possible alternative absorbers and discusses the only apparently controversial environmental impacts of this fantastic technology.


Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (15) ◽  
pp. 4421
Author(s):  
Ángela Barreda ◽  
Pablo Albella ◽  
Fernando Moreno ◽  
Francisco González

High refractive index dielectric (HRID) nanoparticles are a clear alternative to metals in nanophotonic applications due to their low losses and directional scattering properties. It has been demonstrated that HRID dimers are more efficient scattering units than single nanoparticles in redirecting the incident radiation towards the forward direction. This effect was recently reported and is known as the “near zero-backward” scattering condition, attained when nanoparticles forming dimers strongly interact with each other. Here, we analyzed the electromagnetic response of HRID isolated nanoparticles and aggregates when deposited on monolayer and graded-index multilayer dielectric substrates. In particular, we studied the fraction of radiation that is scattered towards a substrate with known optical properties when the nanoparticles are located on its surface. We demonstrated that HRID dimers can increase the radiation emitted towards the substrate compared to that of isolated nanoparticles. However, this effect was only present for low values of the substrate refractive index. With the aim of observing the same effect for silicon substrates, we show that it is necessary to use a multilayer antireflection coating. We conclude that dimers of HRID nanoparticles on a graded-index multilayer substrate can increase the radiation scattered into a silicon photovoltaic wafer. The results in this work can be applied to the design of novel solar cells.


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