Thin-Film Silicon Photovoltaics
Thin Film Silicon Photovoltaics
Low-cost solar energy capture
The current market for solar energy has stalled due to the high cost and low efficiency of current technology. Conventional solar cells do not produce power efficiently enough to justify the cost of investment. This project seeks to develop low-cost, thin-film silicon photovoltaics with high efficiency that could be used to realize the full potential of solar energy. The optimization of Thin-film silicon photovoltaic research here is by exploring the lower-cost approach to manufacturing silicon photovoltaics through utilizing layers of thin film silicon in an enhanced cell design.
Accomplishments:
- Established key infrastructure elements for thin-film silicon photovoltaic research.
- Installed silicon deposition tooling to support thin-film silicon photovoltaic fabrication.
- Fabricated ideal thin crystalline Si structures in order to study silicon thickness to cell efficiency correlation by growing nanocrystals in thicknesses of 5, 10, 20 and 40 micrometers.
- Obtained excellent correlation between expected (theoretical) efficiency and the measured efficiency.
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