Renewable Energy Sources

MET404
 Solar Cell Classification

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 Solar Cell Classification
On the basis of thickness of active material:
• Thick Film Solar Cell:
Base material itself is an active material.
Generally produced in batch processing.
• Thin Film Solar Cell:
A thin film of active material (few nm to μm) is
deposited on the back support sheet known as substrate.
Little consumption of active material.
Can be manufactured in continuous production.

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 Solar Cell Classification
On the basis of thickness of active material:
• Thin Film Solar Cell:
It is difficult to produce thin film cells with surface area
more than 25 cm2.
Cell mismatch is common problem with small area cells.
Texturization of thin film solar cells is very difficult.
Difficult to produce single or multi crystalline thin film
solar cells.
Single and multi crystalline solar cells are best suited for
terrestrial applications.

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 Solar Cell Classification

On the basis of junction structure:

• PN homo junction cell,
• PN heterojunction cell,
• Metal-semiconductor (Shottky) junction cell,
• PN multijunction cell, and
• P-i-N semiconductor junction cell.

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 Solar Cell Classification
On the basis of junction structure:
• PN homo junction cell:
Semiconduting material on both sides of the
junction are same only doping material are different.
Band gap remains same throughout the cell material.
Most of the electron hole pairs generated in the top
layer are lost to recombination when they are
created more than diffusion length of the junction.

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 Solar Cell Classification
• PN hetro junction cell:
Two dissimilar semiconductor materials, such as III-IV
or II-VI compound semiconductors with closely
matching crystal lattice are used to form the junction.
The band gap of the top material exposed to sunlight is
wider than the band gap of the material below junction.
Hence top layer is transparent to photons with lower
energies, so it can penetrate to the junction where
EG < E.
Thus electron-hole pairs are generated near depletion
region, where they are collected before they recombine.

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 Solar Cell Classification
On the basis of junction structure:
• PN hetro junction cell:
Gallium Arsenide-Gallium Aluminium Arsenide
(GaAs-GaAlAs).
Cadmium Sulphide-Copper Sulphide (Cds-Cu2S).
Cadmium Sulphide-Copper Indium Diselenide
(CdS-sCuInSe2).
Cadmium Sulphide-Cadmium Telluride
(CdS-CdTe).

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 Solar Cell Classification
• PN Metal-Semiconductor (Shottky) junction cell:
Contact is made between a metal and semiconductor.
The contact formed is either an ohmic contact
(Permit bi-directional current) or a rectifying
contact (Permit unidirectional current).
The rectifying contact is known as Schottky
junction.
This junction has depletion layer and built in electric
field on the semiconductor side of the junction.
This is responsible for sweeping of the minority
charge carriers on the other side of the junction.
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 Solar Cell Classification
On the basis of junction structure:
• PN multi junction cell:
Formed by stack of junctions of different band gaps.
The top junction has a relatively wider band gap
followed by one or two more junctions in decreasing
order of band gaps in tandem (series).
High energy photos will be absorbed at the top junction
followed by absorption of lower energy photons at
subsequent junction.
Reversed bias will be created in between multi
junctions.
This is eliminated using P-i-N type junction structure.

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 Solar Cell Classification
• PN multi junction cell:

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 Solar Cell Classification
On the basis of type of active material:
• Single Crystal (or monocrystalline) Si cell,
• Multicrystalline Si cell,
• Amorphous Si cell (a-Si),
• Gallium arsenide cell, (GaAs),
• Copper indium (gallium) di-selenide cell
(CIS),
• Cadmium telluride cell (CdTe), and
• Organic Cell.

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 Solar Cell Classification

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 Solar Cell Classification
Single Crystal (or monocrystalline) Si cell:
Here there is a perfect periodic arrangement of atoms,
The crystal is highly ordered and its lattice is continuous
and unbroken,
These are most efficient and widely used PV cells,
Most energy intensive in their production, and
Si required per unit PV electricity production is quite
high.

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 Solar Cell Classification
Production of Single Crystal (or monocrystalline) Si
cell:
Si is the most abundant element in Earth’s crust after oxygen,
It occurs in the form of SiO2 in the form of quartz, sand and
silicates,
There are several impurities in natural occurring quartzite
including Al, B, P, Cu, C, Ca, Mg, Fe, Ti, Mn, Mg etc.,
The acceptable range of impurities:
For electronic applications in ppb,
For Solar cell application in ppm.

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 Solar Cell Classification
Production of Single Crystal (or monocrystalline) Si
cell:
Step 1: Production of metallurgical grade (99% pure) Si
from its ore, SiO2,
This is done by reduction reaction with carbon in an arc
furnace,
Around 50 kWh/kg of Si is required for this process,
CO2 is produced as a by product in this process,
CO2 is green house gas.

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 Solar Cell Classification
Production of Single Crystal (or monocrystalline) Si
cell:
Step 2: Production of Electronic grade pure Si from
MGS,
This is done by further refining through various complex
operations at an energy cost of 200 kWh/kg of Si.
5% of total MGS produced is used in making electronic
grade Si and remaining is used in iron and aluminium
industry for making alloys.

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 Solar Cell Classification
Step 3: IIIrd group impurity (like B) in desired quantity is
introduced in the electronic grade poly Si melt to get P
type material,
The bulk resistivity of poly Si is chosen appropriately by
controlled doping.
Low doping or high resistivity should result in wider
depletion layer and increased Isc.
Too low resistivity or high doping leads to lower Isc and
larger carrier recombination.
Optimum value of resistivity in the range of 1 to 3 ohm-
cm is selected for bulk Si solar cells.

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 Solar Cell Classification
Step 4: The molten mass is recrystallized into a single
crystal ingot as large as 4 to 6” in dia and 3 to 5 feet long,
This is done by using Float zone process.
Wafers of thickness in the range of 200 to 400 microns are
made from ingots by using special saws.
This is called “Wafer Dicing”.
Around 30 to 40% of this material is lost in this slicing
operation.

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 Solar Cell Classification
Step 5: The edges of wafer are trimmed to make it closer
to square shape,
On each wafer V group impurity (like P) is diffused to get
a thin layer of N type material.
Thus PN junction is formed.
Low resistance ohmic contacts are made on both sides for
external connection after applying anti reflecting coating
on the front side.

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 Solar Cell Classification
Multi Crystalline Si Solar cell:
These are composed of many crystallites of varying size
and orientation,
In multcrystalline Si the grains size is in the range of mm
to cm,
In polycrystalline Si the grains size is less than 1 mm,
Poly/multi crystalline Si can be recognized by a visible
grain, a “metal flake effect”.
.

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 Poly-Crystalline PV Cells

Left side: solar cells made of multi crystalline silicon

Right side: polysilicon rod (top) and chunks (bottom)
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 Poly and Mono Crystalline PV Cells

Left side: polycrystalline solar cells

Right side: monocrystalline solar cells
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 Solar Cell Classification
Multi Crystalline Si Solar cell:
These are less energy intensive in their production and
less costly compared to single crystal Si cells,
They less efficient (by 1 or 2 %) than single crystal Si
cells,
Impurity segregation at the grain boundaries (acts as a
recombination centres) has limited the achievable
maximum conversion efficiency.
.

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 Solar Cell Classification
Multi Crystalline Si Solar cell:
Multi crystalline wafers are of square shape,
This allows higher package density of cells in the module,
Hence at module level these cells offer equal efficiencies as
compared to single crystal Si solar cells.
In its production the first involves the production MGS and
then in the second step production of electronic grade Si from
MGS,
Till here the process is same as the production process of
single crystalline Si cell.

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 Solar Cell Classification
Multi Crystalline Si Solar cell:
The poly silicon so obtained is melted in a square shaped
crucible.
After proper doping an ingot of multi crystalline Si is
produced by controlled cooling from the bottom of the
crucible,
The controlled cooling in the square crucible produces
multi crystalline Si block with grain size in the range of
mm to cm.

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 Solar Cell Classification
Multi Crystalline Si Solar cell:
Slicing and other steps are similar to the single crystalline
Si PV cells.
Solar Grade Si can be used to produce PV cells instead of
Electronic Grade Si, which further reduces the cost,
Solar Grade Si consists impurities ppm.

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 Solar Cell Classification
Amorphous Silicon (a-Si) Solar cell:
a-Si are recently developed using thin film technology.
These are cheaper alternative to single crystal Si cells,
They have lower efficiencies and degrade when exposed
to light.
Degradation decreases after some initial exposure to light.
Hence their stabilized efficiencies are mentioned by the
manufacturers.

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 Solar Cell Classification
Amorphous Silicon (a-Si) Solar cell:
They will show better performances when exposed to
diffused or indoor lights,
Hence best suited for in applications such as pocket
calculators, electronic watches, small radio receivers and
lower power hand held electronic instruments etc.
a-Si has no predictable crystal structure.
Non crystalline structure results in very low mobility
carriers and hence it’s a poor semin conductor.

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 Solar Cell Classification
Amorphous Silicon (a-Si) Solar cell:
Semi conducting properties can be improved when
alloyed with Hydrogen to make a-Si:H material,
a-Si:H is best suited for multi junction PV cells.
a-Si/a-SiGe/a-SiGe can produce stabilized efficiencies of
around 13% and module efficiencies of around 8 to 9%.
a-Si cell (EG = 1.75eV) can be staked with micro
crystalline Si cell (EG = 1.12eV) to make “micromorph”
cell.

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 Solar Cell Classification
Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) Solar cell:
It has a band gap of 1.43 eV,
Used to make multi junction solar cells,
High performance extra terrestrial quality solar cells.
FF around 80%, Voc around 0.8 to 0.9V and efficiency
more than 20% can be obtained with these PV Cells.
High production cost makes them only to use for extra
terrestrial and special applications.

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 Solar Cell Classification
Copper Indium (Gallium) diselenide (CIGS) PVCell:
It has a band gap of 1.0 eV,
Incorporation of Ga in CIGS mixture will increase its band
gap beyond 1.15 eV,
Hetrogeneous junction with N-type CdS and P-type CIGS is
prepared using thin film technology.
Less production and efficiencies around 10% are attractive
feature of these cells compared to a-Si cells.
Efficiency decreases when exposed to elevated temperatures.

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 Solar Cell Classification
Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) PVCell:
It has a band gap of 1.5 eV,
Hetrogeneous junction with N-type CdS and P-type CdTe
is prepared using thin film technology.
Its efficiency is around 10% and Voc is around 0.8 V and
no instability problem for outdoor applications.

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 Solar Cell Classification
Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) PVCell:

Ethylene Vinyl Acetate

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 Solar Cell Classification
Organic PVCell:
Fabricated out of carbon based dyes and polymers (solar
plastics),
Flexible and can bend without breaking.
Light and cheap material.
Can be folded and cut into any required shape.
Less efficient and currently are under development stage.

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 References
• B.H. Kharn, “Non Conventional Energy
Sources”, Tata McGraw Hill 3rd Edition.

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 Thank You
Dr. M Mohan Jagadeesh Kumar
Assistant Professor
MNIT Jaipur