Directionally solidified multicrystalline silicon (mc-Si)-based solar cells have dominated the global photovoltaic market in recent years. The photovoltaic performance of mc-Si solar cells is strongly influenced by their crystalline defects. The occurrence of minicrystallization results in much smaller grain size and, therefore, a larger number of grain boundaries in mc-Si ingots. Dislocations ...

Erbium-doped sodium yttrium fluoride sNaYF4:Erd up-conversion phosphors were attached to the rear of a bifacial silicon solar cell to enhance its reponsivity in the near-infrared. The incident wavelength and light intensity were varied and the resulting short circuit current of the solar cell was measured. A close match between the spectral features of the external quantum efficiency and the ph...

Article history: Received 21 August 2011 Received in revised form 1 November 2011 Available online 14 December 2011

Photovoltaic phenomenon was first observed by E. Becquerel (Becquerel) in 1839. He observed the electric current-lit silver electrode, immersed in the electrolyte. In 1894, taking advantage of the observed photoconductivity phenomenon in amorphous selenium the semiconductor solar cell was developed. The very first silicon p-n junction solar cell was made in 1954, energy conversion efficiency of...

This chapter aims to provide students/engineers/scientists in the field of photovoltaics with the basic information needed to understand the operating principles of screen‐ printed front junction n‐type silicon solar cells. The relevant device fabrication process‐ ing is described, from texturing, diffusion, passivation and antireflection coating, to screen‐ printed and fired‐through metallizat...

silicon nanowire (sinw) arrays were produced by electroless method on polycrystalline si substrate, in hf/ agno3 solution. although the monocrystalline silicon wafer is commonly utilized as a perfect substrate, polycrystalline silicon as a low cost substrate was used in this work for photovoltaic applications. in order to study the influence of etching time (which affects the sinws length) on d...

In this paper, we discuss two new paradigms for enabling costeffective III-V solar cell photovoltaics using (i) our novel layer transfer technology, called controlled spalling and (ii) new solar cell device structures. First, we present the application of the controlled spalling for making high-efficiency thin-film multijunction solar cells. Finally, a novel GaAs heterojunction solar cell struc...