FACULTY OF ENGINEERING

Solar Cell
EEN2056 PHYSICAL ELECTRONICS ASSIGNMENT TRIMESTER 2 SESSION 2011/2012

Name Ho Hock Sheng

ID 1051101018

Group Members Michalis A. M. Al Tous Mmereki Mosimane Phatshwana Katso Selatolo

ID 1061110668 1061110355 1071117496

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Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 3 2.0 Principle ............................................................................................................................... 4 3.0 Why Solar ............................................................................................................................ 4 3.1 Environmental Impact ...................................................................................................... 4 3.2 Renewable and Sustainable .............................................................................................. 4 3.3 Abundant Components ..................................................................................................... 5 3.4 Finance ............................................................................................................................. 5 4.0 Theory .................................................................................................................................. 6 5.0 Characteristic of a Solar Cell ............................................................................................... 6 6.0 Production of solar cell using bulk materials ....................................................................... 7 6.1 Silicon............................................................................................................................... 7 6.2 Thin film solar cell ........................................................................................................... 7 6.3 Cadmium telluride ............................................................................................................ 8 6.4 Copper indium gallium arsenide ...................................................................................... 8 6.5 Copper indium selenide .................................................................................................... 8 6.6 Gallium arsenide (GaAs) multijunction ........................................................................... 8 6.7 Nanocrystalline solar cells ............................................................................................... 9 6.8 Organic or polymer solar cells ......................................................................................... 9 6.9 More powerful solar cells ................................................................................................. 9 7.0 Solar cell efficiency factors ............................................................................................... 10 8.0 Energy conversion efficiency ............................................................................................ 10 9.0 Testing of Solar Panels ...................................................................................................... 11 10.0 Advantages and Disadvantage ......................................................................................... 12 10.1 Silicon processing ........................................................................................................ 12 10.2 Application of solar cells in energy.............................................................................. 12 11.0 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 13 12.0 References ........................................................................................................................ 14

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1.0 Introduction
Youve probably seen calculators that have solar cell-calculators that never need batteries and in some cases dont even have an off button. As long as you have enough light, they seem to work forever. You may have seen larger solar panels-on emerging road signs or call boxes. Although these larger panels arent as common as solar powered calculators, they are out there and not that hard to spot if you know where to look. You have also seen solar cell arrays on satellites, where they are used to power the electrical system.

You have probably also been hearing about the solar revolution for the last 20 years the idea that one day we will all use free electricity from the sun. This is a seductive promise. On a bright, sunny day the sun shines approximately 1000 watts of energy per square meter of the planets surface, and if we could collect all of that energy we could easily power our homes and offices.

In this section, we will examine solar cells to learn how they convert the suns energy directly into electricity. In the process you will discover why we are getting closer to using the suns energy on a daily basis, but we still have more research to do before the process becomes cost effective.

A solar cell or a photovoltaic cell is a device that converts photons from the suns radiation into electricity. In general, a solar cell that includes both solar and non solar sources of light (such as photons from incandescent bulbs) is termed as photovoltaic cell.

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2.0 Principle
Solar cells or photovoltaic cells are working on the principle photovoltaic effect i.e. Creation of emf across the pn junction during irradiation of light. Thus the basic function of a solar cell is the conversion of electromagnetic energy into electrical energy.

3.0 Why Solar

3.1 Environmental Impact
Solar energy produces almost no carbon emissions of greenhouse gases in term of environmental impact. It produces energy by not involving in combustion, chemical process. In comparison, the only pollutants are factors that involving in construction and transportation of its part. If solar energy is implemented on a large scale, reduction of its environmental footprint to a nil levels can be achieved. Burning of fossil fuels could create carbon dioxide which is the primary contributor to global warming. The average temperature of Earth rose one degree Fahrenheit (1F) in 20th century. Compared to fossil fuels and nuclear power solar energy are definitely a clean energy. In addition to that, it is also being stated as a silent energy by any means no noise pollution in generating electricity from the panels installed. Environment and pollution friendly are one of the well known points to be stated as it is also being used as a carbon footprint effective solution.

3.2 Renewable and Sustainable

In term of energy supply, solar power is also very environmentally because sun will never disappear. By contrasting this with fossil fuels, which need to be mined or drilled and thus impact on environment enormously. Of course they are also non-renewable.

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The underlying plants and animals beneath the Earths surface after hundreds of millions years, transform into the fossil fuels for human usage. Once all oil fields are depleted, human will not enjoy the fuels anymore.

3.3 Abundant Components

The photovoltaic cells on solar panel system are usually made of silicon which is one of the most common minerals found on Earth. That means it does not require mining or drilling to produce. Hence, the overall environmental effect on the ecosystem is greatly reduced.

3.4 Finance
Investment on solar electric system can reduce the electricity bill or eliminate it, not just only reduce the use of fossil fuels and carbon emissions. When more electricity is generated by the system, the less electricity will be consumed from power station and eventually lower the electricity bill. Normally a silicon cell solar module can sustain more than 20 years and some companies give out 25 years of warranty. After warranty, most of them will request or buy from the owner for recycling use.

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4.0 Theory
If a piece of ptype silicon is placed in close contact with a piece of n-type silicon, then a diffusion of electrons occurs from the region of high electron concentration (the n-type side of the junction) into the region of low electron concentration (p-type side of the junction). When the electrons diffuse across the p-n junction, they recombine with the holes on the p-type side. The diffusion of carriers does not happen indefinitely however, because of an electric field which is created by the imbalance of charge immediately either side of the junction which this diffusion creates. The electric field established across the p-n junction creates a diode that promotes current to flow in only one direction across the junction. Electrons may pass from the n-type side into the p-type side, and holes may pass from the ptype side to the n-type side. This region where electrons have diffused across the junction is called the depletion region. The action of the light (shower of photons) falling on the junction is to create electron-hole pairs which move under the influence of this built in field such that the electrons migrate to n-region and the holes migrate to p-region. This charge separation will create an electric field opposite to the electric field created by the diffusion. If the number of absorbed photons is enough, these two fields will cancel each other, leading to an open circuit voltage between the n and p regions. If these created electrons and holes are made to flow through an external load, electrical energy will be obtained from the absorbed photons. The DC output from the solar arrays enters an inverter. The inverter turns DC electricity into 120-240 volt AC (alternating current) electricity needed for home appliances. The AC power enters the utility panel in the house. The electricity is then distributed to appliances or lights in the house. The electricity that is not used will be recycled and reused in other facilities. (Solar panels have a sheet of tempered glass on the front, and a polymer encapsulation on the back).

5.0 Characteristic of a Solar Cell

A good photo voltaic material should have a large absorption coefficient at low temperature and optimum value of energy gap. If the photon energy is equal to (or) greater than the band gap leads to a large intrinsic carrier concentration and the possibility of photon absorption is less. The photon can be absorbed by the silicon; can generate heat if the photon energy is higher than the silicon band gap value. The construction of a solar cell is difficult because of the fact that one of the crystals (usually p type) has to be in the form of a single crystal with a controlled impurity. The thickness of p layer is very small when we compare with n-layer to avoid recombination of charge carriers.

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6.0 Production of solar cell using bulk materials

Bulk technologies are often referred to as wafer-based technologies. In each of these approaches, self-supporting wafers between 180 to 240 micrometers thick are processed and then soldered together to form a solar cell module. Some techniques are given below:

6.1 Silicon
Bulk silicon is separated into multiple categories according to crystallinity and crystal size in the resulting ingot, ribbon, or wafer.

1. Monocrystalline silicon (c-Si): often made using the CZOCHRALSKI process. Single crystal wafer cells tend to be expensive, and because they are cut from cylindrical ingots, do not completely cover a square solar cell module without a substantial waste of refined silicon. Hence most c-Si panels have uncovered gaps at the corners or four cells.

2. Poly-or multicrystalline silicon (poly-Si or mc-Si): made from cast square ingotslarge blocks of molten silicon carefully cooled and solidified. These cells are less expensive to produce than single crystal cells but are less efficient. These are suitable for large scale production.

3. Ribbon silicon: formed by drawing flat thin films from molten silicon and having a multicrystalline structure. These cells have lower efficiencies than poly-Si, but save on production costs due to a great reduction in silicon waste, as this approach does not require sawing from ingots.

6.2 Thin film solar cell

The various thin-film technologies currently being developed reduce the amount (or mass) of light absorbing material required in creating a solar cell. This can lead to reduced processing costs from that of bulk materials. Many multi-layer thin films have efficiencies above those of bulk silicon wafers.

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6.3 Cadmium telluride CdTe is an efficient light-absorbing material for thin-film solar cells. Compared to other thin-film materials, CdTe is easier to deposit and more suitable for large scale production. This is the only technology (apart from amorphous silicon) that can be delivered on a large scale, as shown by First Solar and Antec Solar. There is a 40 megawatt plant in Ohio (USA) and a 10 megawatt plant in Germany. First Solar is scaling up to a 100 MW plant in Germany.

6.4 Copper indium gallium arsenide

They are multi-layered thin-film composites. These cells are best described by a more complex heterojunction model. The best efficiency of a thin-film solar cell as of December 2005 was 19.5% with CIGS. As of 2006, the best conversion efficiency for flexible CIGS cells on polyimide is 14.1%. The use of Gallium increases the band gap of the CIGS layer as compare to CIS thus increase the voltage. In another point of view, gallium is added to replace as much indium as possible due to galliums relative availability to indium. Approximately 70% of Indium currently produced is used by the flat-screen monitor industry.

6.5 Copper indium selenide

The materials based on CuInSe2, that are of interest for photovoltaic applications include several elements from groups I, III, VI in the periodic table. These semiconductors are especially attractive for thin film solar application because of their high optical absorption coefficients and versatile optical and electrical characteristics which can in principle can be manipulated and tuned for a specific need in a given device. CIS is an abbreviation for general chalcopyrite films of copper indium selenide (CuInSe2), CIGS mentioned above is a variation of CIS. While these films can achieve 13.5% efficiency, their manufacturing costs at present are high when comparing to silicon solar cell but continuing work is leading to more cost-effective production processes.

6.6 Gallium arsenide (GaAs) multijunction

High-efficiency cells have been developed for special applications such as satellites and space exploration which require high-performance. A triple-junction cell, for example, may consist of the semiconductors: GaAs, Ge, and GaInP2. Each type of semiconductor will have a characteristic band gap energy which, loosely speaking, causes it to absorb light most efficiently at a certain colour, or more precisely, to absorb electromagnetic radiation over a portion of the spectrum. The semiconductors are carefully chosen to absorb nearly the entire 8

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spectrum, thus generating electricity from as much of the solar energy as possible. GaAs multifunction devices are the most efficient solar cells to date, reaching as high as 39% efficiency. 6.7 Nanocrystalline solar cells These structures make use of some of the same thin-film light absorbing materials but are overlain as an extremely thin absorber on a supporting matrix of conductive polymer or mesoporous metal oxide having a very high surface area to increase internal reflections (and hence increase the probability of light absorption).

6.8 Organic or polymer solar cells

Organic solar cells and polymer solar cells are built from thin films of (typically 100 nm) organic semiconductors such as polymers and small- modules compounds like polyphenylene vinylene, copper phthalocyanine (a blue or green organic pigment) and carbon fullerenes. Energy conversion efficiency achieved to date using conducting polymers are low at 4 to 5 % efficiency for the best cells to date. However, these cells could be beneficial for some applications where mechanical flexibility and disposability are important.

6.9 More powerful solar cells

Today, solar cells are not a very efficient way to produce electricity, even if the source of energy is free. They can be manufactured from thick crystalline silicon wafers (300 microns thick) or thinner non-crystalline (about 2 microns thick). But thin cells built are less efficient than thick ones, even if they are cheaper to produce. Recently, researchers have found a way to boost the performance of solar cells by 40% to 50%.

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7.0 Solar cell efficiency factors

A solar cell may operate over a wide range of voltages (V) and currents (I). By increasing resistive load (voltage) in the cell from zero (indicating a short circuit) to infinitely high values (indicating open circuit) one can determine the maximum power point (the maximum output electrical power Vmax * Imax or Pm, in watts).

Pm = Vmax * Imax

8.0 Energy conversion efficiency

A solar cells energy conversion efficiency (), is the percentage of power converted (from absorbed light to electrical circuit) and collected, when a solar cell is connected to an electrical circuit. This term is calculated using the ratio of Pm, divided by the input light irradiance under standard test conditions (E, in Weber / meter square) and surface area of the solar cell.

= Pm/( E * Ac)

STANDARD solar radiation (known as the air mass 1.5 spectrum) has a power density of 1000 watts per square meter. Thus, a 12% efficiency solar cell having one meter square of surface area in full sunlight at solar noon at the equator during either March or September.

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9.0 Testing of Solar Panels

Most manufacturers use what is called the flash test. During a flash test the pv module is exposed to a short (1ms. to 30 ms.), bright (100 mW. per sq. cm.) flash of light from a xenon filled arc lamp. The output spectrum of this lamp is as close to the spectrum of the sun as possible. The output is collected by a computer and the data is compared to a reference solar module. The reference module has its power output calibrated to standard solar irradiation. The results of the flash test are compared to the specifications of the pv module datasheet and the numbers printed on the pv modules back. Even though every manufacturer (should) provide(s) the flash test of all solar panels ordered, we always decide to perform our own flash test and confirm if all quality criteria are met. Module parameters are measured at standard test conditions (STC). STC specifies a temperature of 25 C and an irradiance of 1000 W/m2 with an air mass 1.5 (AM1.5) spectrums. These correspond to the irradiance and spectrum of sunlight incident on a clear day upon a sun-facing 37-tilted surface with the sun at an angle of 41.81 above the horizon. This condition approximately represents solar noon near the spring and autumn equinoxes in the continental United States with surface of the cell aimed directly at the sun.

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10.0 Advantages and Disadvantage

10.1 Silicon processing
Silicon is very common element, but it is normally bound in silica, silica sand. Processing silica (SiO2) to produce silicon is a very high energy process, and more energy efficient methods of synthesis are not only beneficial to the solar industry, but also to industries surrounding silicon technology as a whole. The current industrial production of silicon is via the reaction between carbon (charcoal) and silica at a temperature around 1700 degrees Celsius. In this process, known as carbothermic reduction, each tone of silicon (metallurgical grade, about 98% pure) is produced with the emission of about 1.5 tones of carbon dioxide. Solid silica can be directly converted (reduced) to pure silicon by electrolysis in a molten salt bath at a fairly mild temperature (800 to 900 degree Celsius). This is the only technology (apart from amorphous silicon) that can be delivered on a large scale, as shown by First Solar and Antec Solar. The perception of the toxicity Ce Te is based on the toxicity of elemental Cd. However, it is possible for toxic elements to combine to form a harmless compound, as in the example of NaCl, better known as common salt, which consists of highly reactive metal Na and the corrosive and toxic gas Chlorine. Scientific work, particularly by researchers of the National Renewable Energy Laboratories (NREL) in the USA. Has shown in that the release of Cd due to the atmosphere is lower with CdTe-based solar cells than with silicon photovoltaic and other thin films solar cell technologies. Some investors in solar technology worry that production of CIGS cells would use about 10% of the indium produced in 2004. Indium can easily be recycled from decommissioned PV modules. The recycling program in Germany would be one good example to follow.

10.2 Application of solar cells in energy

First, cost has historically been prohibitive for most potential consumers. But the price of coal energy is going up and the price of solar energy is going down. Soon, probably in a few years, cost will be a non-issue. Second, location will continue to be an issue for solar power use. Wet climates will corrode exposed parts more quickly and should be figured into your cost analysis as should areas that get a lot of hail. Cloudy areas may not get enough sun exposure. But clouds arent necessarily a problem as shown by Germanys use of photovoltaics. So does it belong to disadvantages of solar panels or not- up to you! Third, space for both storage batteries and solar panels can be an issue. Batteries to power your house when the sun isnt out can take up a significant amount of space. If you are on an electrical grid, you dont need any batteries. You use your solar power during the day, then use grid power at night. Solar panels can be unsightly and used to cover the whole roof. Today, the panels have gotten smaller and technology is allowing them to blend in better. 12

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Fourth, maintenance can be an issue. When your solar energy goes out, you cant just call the power company. If you dont have an experienced photovoltaic energy technician in your area or if you are not willing to be a bit of a handyman, maintenance is definitely an issue! But if you think you can handle minor repairs now and then, youll be fine. Solar power is very dependable and usually requires little work. Fifth, proper disposal of the panels and the batteries when they are at the end of their useful life is important. Both the storage batteries and the panels contain materials that are very toxic. Lead, sulfuric acid, and cadmium telluride are all used in the manufacture of either the batteries or the panels. The batteries are 98% recyclable and technology promises advances in the development of more eco-friendly photovoltaic cell production.

11.0 Conclusion
It is quite clear tha Solar energy is the best alternative to our conventional power sources but it is nt without hiccups. One of the main reasons holding solar energy back is the initial cost of setting up the systems which might change as time goes by. It is still in its infancy but is likely to grow rapidly. It has the potential to become one of the worlds important PV markets. This is just one of the conclusions in the markets survey from solar plaza entitled THE ITALIAN PV MARKET.

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12.0 References
R. Boreham, The Greatest Advantages of Solar Energy < http://ezinearticles.com/>

Ornaghi C, 2003, Circuits, devices and Systems, IEE Proceedings, Volume 150, Issue 4 Cristoph G, 2011, Journal of Applied Physics, Volume 110, Issue 4 Ming-Chub T, 2009, Electron Device Letters, Volume 30, Issue 9 Sun Ho J, 2010, Electron Device Letters, Volume 31, Issue 7 X. M. Li, 2010, Proceedings of the 36th International MATADOR Conference, Volume 10, Issue 6 Tushar K. Ghosh, 2011, Energy Resources and Systems, Volume 156, Issue 9 Z H Chen, 2011, Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, Volume 44, Issue 32 Fang-Chung Chen, 2010, Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, Volume 43, Issue 2 Da Li, 2010, Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, Volume 43, Issue 1 Thomas Dittrich, 2010, Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, Volume 95, Issue 6 Takahiro Mishima, 2011, Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, Volume 95, Issue 1 Yasuhiko Takeda, 2011, Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, Volume 95, Issue 9 J. Makower, R. Pernick, C. Wilder,(2008, March). Clean Energy Trends 2008, Clean Edge, Inc., San Francisco Bay Area, CA. S.O.Kasap, (2001) .Optoelectronics and Photonics: Principles and Practices, Pearson International Edition, Prentice-Hall, Inc.

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