Crystalline silicon photovoltaics: the hurdle for thin films

Little, R.; Nowlan, M. J.

doi:10.1002/(sici)1099-159x(199709/10)5:5<309::aid-pip180>3.0.co;2-x

Cited by 39 publications

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“…Improved cell and module processing techniques have increased yield, the proportion of functioning units available at the end of the manufacturing process (YD) (Little and Nowlan, 1997;Sarti and Einhaus, 2002;Rohatgi, 2003). 9 Because post-wafer yield measures the final stages of the production process, firms incur the entire cost of modules they discard for mechanical or electrical reasons.…”

Section: Yieldmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond the learning curve: factors influencing cost reductions in photovoltaics

2006

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Section: Yieldmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond the learning curve: factors influencing cost reductions in photovoltaics

2006

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“…However, although diamond Si has a fundamental (indirect) band gap of 1.12 eV [2], its optical (direct) gap is larger than 3 eV [3]; thus, Si is not a good absorber of sunlight [4]. As a result, the Si absorber layer must be sufficiently thick (usually > 100 μm) to absorb enough visible light, and it must be assisted by phonons, which significantly increases the cost of Si-based PV modules [5]. Because of this drawback, in the past several decades, significant effort has been devoted to the search of materials that have better absorption coefficients in the visible region.…”

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confidence: 99%

Exceptional Optoelectronic Properties of Hydrogenated Bilayer Silicene

et al. 2014

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Silicon is arguably the best electronic material, but it is not a good optoelectronic material. By employing first-principles calculations and the cluster-expansion approach, we discover that hydrogenated bilayer silicene (BS) shows promising potential as a new kind of optoelectronic material. Most significantly, hydrogenation converts the intrinsic BS, a strongly indirect semiconductor, into a direct-gap semiconductor with a widely tunable band gap. At low hydrogen concentrations, four ground states of single-and doublesided hydrogenated BS are characterized by dipole-allowed direct (or quasidirect) band gaps in the desirable range from 1 to 1.5 eV, suitable for solar applications. At high hydrogen concentrations, three well-ordered double-sided hydrogenated BS structures exhibit direct (or quasidirect) band gaps in the color range of red, green, and blue, affording white light-emitting diodes. Our findings open opportunities to search for new silicon-based light-absorption and light-emitting materials for earth-abundant, highefficiency, optoelectronic applications.

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“…The indirect band gap of silicon E g = 1.12 eV measured at room temperature 3 is not too far from the optimal value. This is one of the prerequisites that led to the success of crystalline silicon technology on the photovoltaic (PV) market 4 . There is also a growing interest in thin-film silicon technology because of the high costs of silicon wafers 5,6 .…”

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confidence: 99%

Compensation-doped silicon for photovoltaic applications

2011

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A small overlap between the silicon optical absorption spectrum and the solar spectral irradiance limits the conversion efficiency of crystalline thin-film silicon solar cells. In this work, a theoretical search for compensation-doped silicon is carried out aiming to maximize the spectral overlap. First, a wide range of dopant species and concentrations is considered using the virtual crystal approximation and the empirical pseudopotential method. Second, the most promising modifications of silicon are investigated using the supercell method and a first-principles many-electron Green's function approach. In both steps, the optical absorption spectrum is computed by solving the Bethe-Salpeter equation to include excitonic effects. It is found that the conversion efficiency of a silicon film of 10 µm thickness can be increased by 25 % by a 1.6 at. % compensation doping with In and Sb.2

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Crystalline silicon photovoltaics: the hurdle for thin films

Cited by 39 publications

References 0 publications

Beyond the learning curve: factors influencing cost reductions in photovoltaics

Beyond the learning curve: factors influencing cost reductions in photovoltaics

Exceptional Optoelectronic Properties of Hydrogenated Bilayer Silicene

Compensation-doped silicon for photovoltaic applications

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