Introduction to Solar-energy Materials

- Day 1: General Introduction

Dr. Satyajit Gupta

Assistant Professor
Department of Chemistry
IIT Bhilai, Raipur
Chhattisgarh
 Non-renewable energy resource
A non-renewable resource or finite resource is a resource that does not renew
itself at a sufficient rate for sustainable economic extraction in meaningful human
time-frames.

CO+CO2

Green house gas

Solar Energy Wind Power Tidal Waves

Geothermal Heat Rain water

 Comparative
Size of the earth

* from National Oceanic

and Atmospheric
Administration - NASA
 Solar spectra

How to utilize this?

 Metal, semiconductor and insulator
Overlap
Fermi level

Energy level, eV Conduction

band
Band gap

Valance
Band

Metal Semiconductor Insulator

1) The completely filled band is called a valence band and the empty band is
called conduction band.
2) While semiconductors and insulators are in principle the same, in a
semiconductor the bandgap is small enough such that electron from valence
band can absorb energy from a photon and jump to the conduction band leaving
a positive charge in the valence band making the SC electrically active.
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Generations of Solar-Cell and Light Harvesting Materials
Ist
Wafer based
Monocrystalline Si
Poly crystalline Si

IInd
Thin film
Amorphous thin film Si
CdTe
CIGS

IIIrd
Low cost and higher efficiency
Cost effective, Larger Area, Flexibility, Light
Dye sensitized weight, Tailorable properties
Quantum dot
http://www.opli.net
Organic Conjugated polymers
Halide perovskite

7
Czochralski Process