5/9/2018

ME5207 Solar Energy Systems

Solar cells

Palani Balaya
mpepb@nus.edu.sg
6516 7644
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(a) Crystalline Si-solar cells

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http://www.appropedia.org/images/9/91/Solar1.ppt

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Si-solar cells

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Layer structure of basic silicon solar cell

Silicon solar cells design

Basic silicon solar cells
• n-p junction made using a p-type silicon wafer of few hundreds
micron thick & around 100 cm2 – area.
• p-type: 300 – 500 m thick; absorbing light as much as
possible; lightly doped (1016 cm-3) to improve diffusion length
• n-type created by dopant diffusion – heavily doped (1018 cm-3)
to reduce series resistance
• n-layer: thin to allow as much as light to pass through to p-layer
but thick enough to keep series resistance low.
• Carrier collection from emitter (n-type) is rather low because
of high recombination due to heavy doping
• Front surface is anti-reflection coated;
• Contacts made for charge collection prior to encapsulation
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Recombination
• Nearly all the volume of a typical crystalline Si-
solar cell is provided by p-type.

• Effect of recombination in the depletion region and

emitter layer (n-type) rather low, because of low
level of photo generation in those thin layers -
usually neglected.

• Dominated volume recombination in p-region

includes Auger and trap-assisted mechanisms.

Recombination
• Net recombination rate:
U = UAug+USRH

• Si being an indirect band gap material, radiative

recombination is negligible

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Cell fabrication
 Growing single crystalline silicon
– Czochralski process (single crystal is drawn slowly
out of a melt)
– Float zone process (formed from a polycrystalline
silicon by passing a molten zone through it)

 In either case, the dopant is introduced during

growth to produce p-type
 Solid crystal is sliced, etched to smooth the rough
surface

Creating Silicon Wafers

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Growing Silicon Ingots

Czochralski Process

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Drawing a Silicon Ingot

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Silicon Ingots & Wafers

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Cell fabrication
• Junction is made by doping: forming n-type layer using
phosphorous on to the p-type wafer
• Front surface is textured to reduce reflectivity and an
antireflection (AR) coating is deposited using liquid or vapor
phase added.
• For Si, AR coating should have a refractive index of 2 (in the range
1.5 to 2.4) and thickness 80-100 nm.
• Suitable materials for AR coating:
– Tantalum oxide (Ta2O5), titania (TiO2) and silicon nitride
(Si3N4).
• Front and back contacts: Earlier version – Al used as rear
contact; in large production – AR coating, front and back
contacts are deposited by screen printing and then fired
• Screen printing of contacts-relatively cheaper, but blocks a
relatively large area of the cell and degrades conductivity
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Creating PV Cells

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How a Silicon-Based Solar Cell Works?

• Light with energy  the band gap energy of Si is

absorbed
• Energy is given to an electron in the crystal lattice
• This absorbed energy excites the electron; it is free
to move
• A positive “hole”
is left in the
electron’s place
• This separation of
electrons and holes
creates a voltage
and a current 16
Source: http://www.compadre.org/portal/items/detail.cfm?ID=12726

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Solar PV Materials:
Crystalline & Polycrystalline Silicon

• Advantages:
– High Efficiency (15-27%)
– Established technology
(The leader)
– Stable
• Disadvantages:
– Expensive production
– Low absorption coefficient
– Large amount of highly
purified feedstock

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(b) Amorphous Si-solar cells

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http://www.appropedia.org/images/9/91/Solar1.ppt

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Amorphous Silicon
How does a-Si differ from c-Si in terms of structure?

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Structure of amorphous silicon

Differences in the type of defects present

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a-Si:H dangling bonds

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Band gap in a-Si:H

Do note that Eg is well defined in

mono-Si, while it is not well defined
in a-Si. Only Emob (see Fig.) obtained
from transport measurement
(mobility is related to conductivity) is
used to quantify a-Si

In crystalline Si, electrons have a mobility of around 1500 cm2V-1s-1 at low doping and falls to 70 cm2V-1s-1 at
high doping (1019 cm-3). 22
Holes have a low doping mobility of 500 cm2V-1s-1 falling to around 50 cm2V-1s-1 at high doping.

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a-Si: optical absorption

(consider the absorption for a-Si and c-Si)

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Conductivity of amorphous Si (a-Si:H)

Doping of amorphous silicon:

o Tuning of the electrical

conductivity

o Boron doping to obtain p-

type material via B2H6

o Phosphorous doping to
obtain n-type material via
PH3

SiH4 – Silane

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Stability of amorphous silicon

Amorphous silicon suffers from light induced

degradation effects known as SW effect. The defect
density in a-Si: H increases with light exposure of
module, over a time scale, to cause an increase in
the recombination current and reduction in
efficiency. This is because, that light energy breaks
some Si:H bonds to increase the density of dangling
bonds. The system is excited into a higher energy
configuration with more active defects. This also
causes more recombination of the thermally
equilibrated electrons and holes that are
responsible for the dark conductivity hence reducing
the dark conductivity. 25

Amorphous Si layer compared to crystalline Si – a

summary (pros & cons)

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p-n and p-i-n Junctions

Vbi Vbi

Ef Ef

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Charge Separation - Diffusion

• n-type and p-type are
aligned by the Fermi-level

• When a photon comes in n-

type, it takes the place of a
hole, the hole acts like an air
bubble and “floats” up to
the p-type

• When the photon comes to

the p-type, it takes the place
of an electron, the electron
acts like a steel ball and
“rolls” down to the n-type

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Charge Separation - Drift

• There is an intrinsic gap

where the photon is
absorbed in and causes
the electron hole pair
to form.
• The electron rises up to
the top and drifts
downwards (to n-type)
• The hole drifts upwards
(to p-type)

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C-Si and a-Si:H solar cells: comparison

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C-Si and a-Si:H solar cells: comparison

(what is the type of recombination?)

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Design approach for efficient for a-Si:H solar cells

In addition to F-doped SnO2, ZnO is a well

known transparent conducting oxide

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Increasing efficiency and stability: challenges and

research

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Stability of amorphous Si:H

HW= hot wire

If a-Si is kept only in dark this degradation does not occur, only due to light 34
illumination we observe SWE.

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Stability of a-Si:H using Protocrystalline

Proto-crystalline a-Si:H is a composite of crystal Si and amorphous Si as

shown in Figure.

Stability of amorphous-Si: multijunction concept

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Increasing the efficiency of a-Si:H

Multi-band concept

Tunnel junctions formed at the contact of n and p.

p and n layers can be made out of a-Si:H as they are not involved in light
absorption, but are used only to transport the charges and to form tunnel layers.

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Amorphous Silicon
Advantages:
• High absorption (don’t need a lot of
material)
• Established technology
• Ease of integration into buildings
• Excellent ecological balance sheet
• Cheaper than the glass, metal, or
plastic you deposit it on
Disadvantages:
• Only moderate stabilized efficiency 7-10%
• Instability- It degrades when light hits it

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(c) Dye-sensitized Solar Cell

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Nanostructured Solar Cell

LUMO: Lower
• Dye molecule unoccupied
molecular
– electron hole pair orbital

splits because
radiation interacts
with the dye
– the electron shifts
over to the electric
HOMO: Highly
conductor and the occupied
hole shifts to the hole molecular
orbital
conductor

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Design of Dye-sensitized Solar Cells

• Conducting electrode
conducting glass support
coated with conducting
oxide.
• Nano structured dye-
sensitized TiO2 film
• Liquid electrolyte
• Counter electrode
coated with conducting
oxide with small amount of
Pt

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Working Principle of DSC

1. Photoexciton of dye
2. Injection of e- into CB of TiO2 (2)
e- I3-/I-
e-
3. Transport of e- working
(3)
electrode (1)

4. Regeneration of oxidized dye (5)

e- e-
by donation from electrolyte
(4)
5. Regeneration of electrolyte

e- e-
e- e-

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Role of nanoparticles in DSSC

dye

TiO2

100 nm

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Dye sensitized nanocrystals achieve quantitative

conversion of photons into electric current

The incident photon to electrical current conversion efficiency

(external quantum efficiency) can reach close to 100 %

 = abs*inj* coll

A key question is how electrons are quantitively collected from the disordered
network of nanoparticles.

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A dye sensitized nanocrystalline film generates over 1000 times more

photocurrent than a single crystal electrode
single crystal of anatase

Nanocrystalline anatase film

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Dye sensitized solar cell in dark and upon

illumination
Show the energy level diagram for a DSC when it is in dark. Draw the corresponding
energy level diagram when the cell is illuminated with light. Indicate the direction of
electron movement with arrows.

I3-/I-

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Ruthenium complexes are widely used as sensitizers due to

their extraordinary performance and excellent stability

Spontaneous uptake of N3 sensitizer by a

nanocrystalline TiO2 film supported on
conducting glass

Nazeeruddin, M. K.; Kay, A.; Rodicio, I.; Humphry-Baker, R.; Mueller, E.; Liska, P.;
Vlachopoulos, N.; Graetzel, M. J. American Chemical Society (1993), 115(14), 6382-90.

Photo-induced interfacial charge separation occurs within femtoseconds

Fermi level of
electrolyte

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PV performance of DSSC under different

illuminations

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How does a dye-sensitized solar cell work?

• Light with high enough energy excites electrons in

dye molecules
• Excited electrons
infused into
semiconducting TiO2,
transported out of cell
• Positive “holes” left in
dye molecules
• Separation of excited
electrons and “holes”
creates a voltage
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Source: http://www.compadre.org/portal/items/detail.cfm?ID=12726

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