Solar Cells ---

frontiers in materials and devices

Ning Su

EE 666 Advanced Semiconductor Devices April 14, 2005

 Outline
Introduction
Market & technology comparison
 Low cost solar cells
 thin film solar cells (TFSC)

 High efficiency solar cells

 Advanced Si solar cells
 Tandem cells
 Thermophotovoltaic
 other strategies

 Conclusions

EE 666 Advanced Semiconductor Devices April 14, 2005

 Introduction
Why PV ?
 Average power incident upon continental United states is ~ 500 times of
national energy consumption ( total, not just electricity)
 Environmentally-friendly renewable
energy source
 Quiet
 Reliable

Applications
 Residential
Cost-effective way to provide power
to remote area
 Space applications
satellite, space stations

EE 666 Advanced Semiconductor Devices April 14, 2005

 Photovoltaic Cells, Modules and Systems
Solar cell is the basic building blocks of solar PV
 Cells are connected together in series and encapsulated into models
 Modules can be used singly, or connected in parallel and series into
an array with a larger current & voltage output
 PV arrays integrated in systems with components for charge regulation
and storage

Cell module array system

EE 666 Advanced Semiconductor Devices April 14, 2005

 Market for Solar PV

 PV market grows at fast rate especially in recent years

 Cumulatively, about 2GW of solar cells are being used in a variety of applications

EE 666 Advanced Semiconductor Devices April 14, 2005

 Comparison of PV Technology

World PV module production in 2003

 main technologies available: single & multi- cystalline Si, a-Si, CuInSe2, CdTe….
 Bulk cystalline Si remains dominant
 Different technology comparison in efficiency & cost

EE 666 Advanced Semiconductor Devices April 14, 2005

 Low Cost vs. High Efficiency SC
Applications: Terrestrial Space

Demands: Low cost High efficiency High efficiency Light weight

Radiation resistance

Technology: Thin film Organic SC tandem TPV

Materials: Multicystalline Si III-V Single crystalline Si

a-Si ; CIS; CdTe

EE 666 Advanced Semiconductor Devices April 14, 2005

 Thin Film Solar Cells
“thin film” refers more to solar cell technologies with mass-production possibilities
Rather than the film thickness.

 requirement for suitable materials: low cost, high absorption, doping, transport,
robust and stable
leading materials for TFSC: CdTe, CuInSe 2, (CIS) ,a-SI…

 advantages:
-- low material requirement
-- variety of processing methods
-- light weight modules

 disadvantages:

-- low achieved efficiency

EE 666 Advanced Semiconductor Devices April 14, 2005

 CIS & CdTe TFSC
 CIS, direct band gap with Eg~ 1eV, α>105 cm-1

 high cell efficiency (19.2 %), model efficiency

(13.4%)
 comparatively long lifetime

Current complicated and capital intensive

fabrication

 CdTe, direct band gap with Eg~ 1.45eV, α>105

cm-1-- ideal suited for PV applications

 Record cell efficiency 16.5 % (NREL)

 Numerous promising processing techniques

EE 666 Advanced Semiconductor Devices April 14, 2005

 Solar Cell Efficiency

E g  bs ( E ) dE
Ideal cell efficiency Eg
 

0
Ebs ( E ) dE

Effect of bandgap on efficiency

 GaAs, InP have Eg close to the optimum,

favored for high η cells
 Si less favorable Eg but cheap & abundant

Effect of spectrum on efficiency

 improving η by concentrating light

100 suns or more illumination

Parabolic reflector Fresnel lens

EE 666 Advanced Semiconductor Devices April 14, 2005

 Minimize Losses in Real SC
Optical loss
Concentration of light

Trapping of light:

 AR coatings
 Mirrors ( metallization rear surface or growing
active layers on top of a Bragg stack)
Rear metal reflector
 textured surface
Double path length in metallized cell

Photon recycling
reabsorption of photons emitted by radiative recombination inside the cell

Electrical loss
Surface passivation
Resistive loss
……

EE 666 Advanced Semiconductor Devices April 14, 2005

 Advanced Si Solar cells

PERL cell
Crystalline Si efficiency

 large improvement in the last 15 years

1) textured surface & AR coating
2) Improved surface passivation

 PERL cell ( 24% in 1994 )

 Buried contact cell commercialized by BP Solarex

advantage: fine grid– reduced shading–J sc
reduced contact recombination – V oc
series resistance – concentrator sc
Burried contact sc

•Martin A. Green etc.,” Very high efficiency silicon solar cells-science and technology,” IEEE Trans. Electron
Devices,vol. ED-46,pp1940-47,1999.

EE 666 Advanced Semiconductor Devices April 14, 2005

 Tandem Cells – beyond efficiency limit

Concept

 Intrinsic efficiency limit using single

semiconductor material is 31%

Stack different band gap junctions in

series larger band gap topmost

 efficiency of 86.8% calculated for an

infinite stack of independently operated
cells *

* A. Marti, G. L. Araujo, Sol. Energy Mater. Sol. Cells 43 (1996) 203.

EE 666 Advanced Semiconductor Devices April 14, 2005

 Tandem Cells -- Practical approaches
Advantages : high efficiency

 Cover wider range of solar spectrum

 reduce thermerlisation loss

(absorbed photon with energy just little
higher than Eg)

Practical approaches

 individual cells grown separately and mechanically stacked

 monolithically grown with a tunnel-junction interconnect

EE 666 Advanced Semiconductor Devices April 14, 2005

 GaInP/GaAs/Ge Dual- and triple-junction SC
Dual-junction (DJ)
 GaInP/GaAs cells on Ge (average AM0 η 21.4 %) *
 small-area lab cells large-scale manufacturing
approach megawatt level **

Triple-junction (TJ)
 efficiency of 27.0% under AM0 illumination at 28 0C *

* N. H. Karam etc. Solar Energy Materials & Siolar cells 66 (2001) 453-466.
**N. H. Karam etc. Trans. Electron Dev. 46 (10) 1999 pp.2116.

EE 666 Advanced Semiconductor Devices April 14, 2005

 Multiple Junction Cells
Four-junction cells under development

 addition of 1-eV GaInNAs subcells

under GaAs to form 4 junctions

InGaN – potential material

for MJ cells

 Direct energy gap of InGaN cover

most of the solar spectrum*

 MJ solar cells based on this single

ternary could be very efficient

* LBNL/Conell work: J. Wu et al. APL 80, 3967 (2002).

EE 666 Advanced Semiconductor Devices April 14, 2005

 Thermophotovoltaic (TPV)
TPV solar energy conversion

Photovoltaic conversion with the addition of an intermediate thermal

absorber/emitter is known as thermophotovoltaic (TPV) energy conversion.

Solar radiation is used to heat absorber/emitter to temperature of 1200-2500 K

emitter radiates photons PV cell converts the energy of radiation
into electrical power.

Advantage

By matching the spectrum of the emitter to the PV cells, efficiency improved.

EE 666 Advanced Semiconductor Devices April 14, 2005

 TPV Configuration
Components of a TPV system

All TPV systems include: 1) heat source 2) radiator 3) PV converter

4) means of recovering unusable photons

Selective emitter matched to PV cells

EE 666 Advanced Semiconductor Devices April 14, 2005

 Other Strategies – for high efficiency
Intermediate band solar cells

 A.Luque and A. Marti,”Increasing the effiency of ideal solar cells by photon

Induced transitions at intermediate levels”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 5014 (1997)

 Low-dimentional strucutrues, QWs, QDs

Impact ionization solar cells

P. Wueerfel, “Radiative efficiency limit of terrrestrial solar-cells with internal
carrier multiplication”, Appl. Phys. Letts. 67, 1028 (1995).

Hot carrier solar cells

P. Wueerfel, “Radiative efficiency limit of terrrestrial solar-cells with internal

carrier multiplication”, Appl. Phys. Letts. 67, 1028 (1995).

……

EE 666 Advanced Semiconductor Devices April 14, 2005

 Conclusions
 Remarkable progress made in synthesis, processing and characterization
leads to major improvement in PV efficiency and reduction in cost

 Silicon continues to dominate the PV industry

 Thin film and organic solar cells offer promising options for substantially
reducing the cost, competitive for terrestrial applications

 Very high efficiency achieved in multiple junction III-V semiconductors

presently commercialized for space applications

 New device concept for high efficiency facing challenges and prospects

EE 666 Advanced Semiconductor Devices April 14, 2005