PRESENTATION

ON
SOLAR CELL AND ADVANCEMENT IN
TECHNOLOGY
 SOLAR ENERGY

• Solar energy, radiant light and heat from the Sun, has been

harnessed by humans since ancient times using a range of
ever-evolving technologies. Solar radiation, along with
secondary solar-powered resources such as wind and wave
power, hydroelectricity and biomass, account for most of the
available renewable energy on Earth.
 ENERGY FROM THE SUN
• The Earth receives 174 petawatts(PW) of incoming solar radiation
(incident) at the upper atmosphere. Approximately 30% is reflected back
to space while the rest is absorbed by clouds, oceans and land masses.
The spectrum of solar light at the Earth's surface is mostly spread across
the visible band near-infrared ranges with a small part in the near-
ultraviolet.
 APPLICATIONS OF SOLAR ENERGY
• Architecture and urban development
• Solar lighting

• Solar heating
• Water treatment
 APPLICATIONS OF SOLAR ENERGY
• Electric generation
• Solar chemical
• Solar vehicles
 SOLAR CELL
• A solar cell is a device that converts the energy of sunlight directly
into electricity by the photovoltaic effect. Sometimes the term solar cell is
reserved for devices intended specifically to capture energy from sunlight, while
the term photovoltaic cell is used when the light source is unspecified. Assemblies
of cells are used to make solar panels, solar modules, or photovoltaic
arrays. Photovoltaics is the field of technology and research related to the
application of solar cells in producing electricity for practical use. The energy
generated this way is an example of solar energy (also called solar power).
 GENERATIONS OF SOLAR CELL
• FIRST GENERATION CELLS

• First generation cells consist of large-area, high quality and single junction

devices . First generation technologies involve high energy and labour
inputs which prevent any significant progress in reducing production costs.
Single junction silicon devices are approaching the theoretical limiting
efficiency of 31% and achieve an energy payback period of 5–7 years.
 GENERATIONS OF SOLAR CELLS
• SECOND GENERATION OF CELLS

• Second generation materials have been developed to address energy requirements

and production costs of solar cells. Alternative manufacturing techniques such as
solution deposition , vapour deposition, electroplating, and use of Ultrasonic
Nozzles are advantageous as they reduce high temperature processing significantly.
It is commonly accepted that as manufacturing techniques evolve production costs
will be dominated by constituent material requirements, whether this be a
silicon substrate, or glass cover.
• The most successful second generation materials have been cadmium
telluride (CdTe), copper indium gallium selenide, amorphous silicon and micro
amorphous silicon. These materials are applied in a thin filmto a supporting
substrate such as glass or ceramics, reducing material mass and therefore costs.
These technologies do hold promise of higher conversion efficiencies,
particularly CIGS-CIS, DSC and CdTe offers significantly cheaper production costs.
 GENERATIONS OF SOLAR CELL
• THIRD GENERATION OF CELL

• Third generation technologies aim to enhance poor electrical performance of

second generation (thin-film technologies) while maintaining very low production
costs.
• Current research is targeting conversion efficiencies of 30-60% while retaining low
cost materials and manufacturing techniques. They can exceed the theoretical solar
conversion efficiency limit for a single energy threshold material, that was
calculated in 1961 by Shockley and Queisser as 31% under 1 sun illumination and
40.8% under the maximal artificial concentration of sunlight (46,200 suns, which
makes the latter limit more difficult to approach than the former).
• There are a few approaches to achieving these high efficiencies including the use
of multi junction photovoltaic cells, concentration of the incident spectrum, the use
of thermal generation by UV light to enhance voltage or carrier collection, or the
use of the infrared spectrum for night-time operation.
 HIGH EFFICIENCY CELLS
• High-efficiency solar cells are a class of solar cell that can generate
more electricity per incident solar power unit (watt/watt). Much of
the industry is focused on the most cost efficient technologies in
terms of cost per generated power. The two main strategies to bring
down the cost of photovoltaic electricity are increasing the
efficiency (as many of the costs scale with the area occupied per
unit of generated power), and decreasing the cost of the solar cells
per generated unit of power. The latter approach might come at the
expense of reduced efficiency, so the overall cost of the photovoltaic
electricity does not necessarily decrease by decreasing the cost of
the solar cells. The challenge of increasing the photovoltaic
efficiency is thus of great interest, both from the academic and
economic points of view.
 RESEARCH AND ADVANCEMENT
• There are currently many research groups active in the field
of photovoltaicsim universities and research institutions around the world.
This research can be divided into three areas: making current technology
solar cells cheaper and/or more efficient to effectively compete with other
energy sources; developing new technologies based on new solar cell
architectural designs; and developing new materials to serve as light
absorbers and charge carriers.
 SILICON PROCESSING
• One way of reducing the cost is to develop cheaper methods of obtaining silicon
that is sufficiently pure. Silicon is a very common element, but is normally bound in
silica, or silica sand. Processing silica (SiO2) to produce silicon is a very high energy
process - at current efficiencies, it takes one to two years for a conventional solar
cell to generate as much energy as was used to make the silicon it contains. More
energy efficient methods of synthesis are not only beneficial to the solar industry,
but also to industries surrounding silicon technology as a whole.

• 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 °C). While this new
process is in principle the same as the FFC Cambridge Process which was first
discovered in late 1996, the interesting laboratory finding is that such electrolytic
silicon is in the form of porous silicon which turns readily into a fine powder, with a
particle size of a few micrometres, and may therefore offer new opportunities for
development of solar cell technologies.
 THIN FILM PROCESSING
• Thin-film photovoltaic cells can use less than 1% of the expensive
raw material (silicon or other light absorbers) compared to wafer-
based solar cells, leading to a significant price drop per Watt peak
capacity. There are many research groups around the world actively
researching different thin-film approaches and/or materials.
However, it remains to be seen if these solutions can achieve a
similar market penetration as traditional bulk silicon solar modules.
• One particularly promising technology is crystalline silicon thin
films on glass substrates. This technology combines the advantages
of crystalline silicon as a solar cell material (abundance, non-
toxicity, high efficiency, long-term stability) with the cost savings of
using a thin-film approach.
 METAMORPHIC MULTIJUNCTION SOLAR CELL

• It represents a new class of solar cells with clear advantages in performance,

engineering design, operation and cost. For decades, conventional cells have
featured wafers of semiconducting materials with similar crystalline structure.
Their performance and cost effectiveness is constrained by growing the cells in an
upright configuration. Meanwhile, the cells are rigid, heavy and thick with a
bottom layer made of germanium.
• In the new method, the cell is grown upside down. These layers use high-energy
materials with extremely high quality crystals, especially in the upper layers of the
cell where most of the power is produced. Not all of the layers follow
the lattice pattern of even atomic spacing. Instead, the cell includes a full range of
atomic spacing, which allows for greater absorption and use of sunlight. The
thick, rigid germanium layer is removed, reducing the cell's cost and 94% of its
weight. By turning the conventional approach to cells on its head, the result is an
ultra-light and flexible cell that also converts solar energy with record efficiency
(40.8% under 326 suns concentration).
 POLYMER PROCESSING
• The invention of conductive polymers (for which Alan Heeger, Alan G.
MacDiarmid and Hideki Shirakawa were awarded a Nobel prize) may lead
to the development of much cheaper cells that are based on inexpensive
plastics. However, organic solar cells generally suffer from degradation
upon exposure to UV light, and hence have lifetimes which are far too
short to be viable. The bonds in the polymers, are always susceptible to
breaking up when radiated with shorter wavelengths. Additionally,
the conjugated double bond systems in the polymers which carry the
charge, react more readily with light and oxygen. So most conductive
polymers, being highly unsaturated and reactive, are highly sensitive to
atmospheric moisture and oxidation, making commercial applications
difficult.
 NANOPARTICLE PROCESSING
• Experimental non-silicon solar panels can be made of quantum
heterostructures, e.g. carbon nanotubes or quantum dots, embedded
inconductive polymers or mesoporous metal oxides. In addition, thin films
of many of these materials on conventional silicon solar cells can increase
the optical coupling efficiency into the silicon cell, thus boosting the
overall efficiency. By varying the size of the quantum dots, the cells can be
tuned to absorb different wavelengths. Although the research is still in its
infancy, quantum dot modified photovoltaics may be able to achieve up to
42% energy conversion efficiency due to multiple exciton
generation (MEG).
 INFRARED SOLAR CELLS
• Researchers at Idaho National Laboratory, along with partners at
Microcontinuum Inc. in Cambridge, MA and Patrick Pinhero of theUniversity of
Missouri, have devised an inexpensive way to producelastic sheets containing
billions of nano antennas that collect heat energy generated by the sun and
other sources. While methods to convert the energy into usable electricity still
need to be developed, the sheets could one day be manufactured as lightweight
"skins" that power everything from hybrid cars to computers and I Pods with
higher efficiency than traditional solar cells. The nanoantennas also have the
potential to act as cooling devices that draw waste heat from buildings or
electronics without using electricity. The nanoantennas target mid-infrared rays,
which the Earth continuously radiates as heat after absorbing energy from the
sun during the day; also double-sided nanoantenna sheets can harvest energy
from different parts of the Sun's spectrum. In contrast, traditional solar cells can
only use visible light, rendering them idle after dark.
 UV SOLAR CELLS
• Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and
Technology (AIST) has succeeded in developing a transparent solar
cell that uses ultraviolet (UV) light to generate electricity but allows
visible light to pass through it. Most conventional solar cells use
visible and infrared light to generate electricity. In contrast, the
innovative new solar cell uses ultraviolet radiation. Used to replace
conventional window glass, the installation surface area could be
large, leading to potential uses that take advantage of the combined
functions of power generation, lighting and temperature control.
• Also, easily fabricated PEDOT:PSS photovoltaic cells are ultraviolet
light selective and sensitive
 3D SOLAR CELLS
• Three-dimensional solar cells that capture nearly all of the light that
strikes them and could boost the efficiency of photovoltaic systems while
reducing their size, weight and mechanical complexity. The new 3D solar
cells capture photons from sunlight using an array of miniature “tower”
structures that resemble high-rise buildings in a city street grid
THANK YOU