Colloidal Silicon Nanocrystallites for Low-cost Solar Cell Development

Effect of Silicon Nanowire on Crystalline Silicon Solar Cell Characteristics

Nanowires (NWs) are recently used in several sensor or actuator devices to improve their ordered characteristics. Silicon nanowire (Si NW) is one of the most attractive one-dimensional nanostructures semiconductors because of its unique electrical and optical properties. In this paper, silicon nanowire (Si NW), is synthesized and characterized for application in photovoltaic device. Si NWs are ...

Electrodeposition of Photoactive Silicon Films for Low-Cost Solar Cells

Here we demonstrate progress on electrodeposition of photoactive silicon films from an environmentally friendly molten CaCl2 electrolyte, which is the first step of a new route to a practical low-cost silicon solar cell. We report electrodeposition of severalmicron thick silicon films on a graphite substrate in a bath of molten CaCl2 containing SiO2 nanoparticles. The best silicon deposits was ...

Lifetime Enhancement and Low-Cost Technology Development for High-Efficiency Manufacturable Silicon Solar Cells

A low-cost, manufacturable defect gettering and passivation treatment, involving simultaneous anneal of a PECVD SiNx film and a screen-printed Al layer, is found to improve the lifetime in Si ribbon materials from 1-10 μs to over 20 μs. Our results indicate that the optimum anneal temperature for SiNx-induced hydrogenation is 700°C for EFG and increases to 825°C when Al is present on the back o...

Development of Low-cost and High-efficiency Commercial Size N-type Silicon Solar Cells

A Silicon Nanocrystal Schottky Junction Solar Cell produced from Colloidal Silicon Nanocrystals

Solution-processed semiconductors are seen as a promising route to reducing the cost of the photovoltaic device manufacture. We are reporting a single-layer Schottky photovoltaic device that was fabricated by spin-coating intrinsic silicon nanocrystals (Si NCs) from colloidal suspension. The thin-film formation process was based on Si NCs without any ligand attachment, exchange, or removal reac...