Making Solar Cells a Reality in Every Home: Opportunities and Challenges for Photovoltaic Device Design
Globally, the cumulative installed photovoltaic (PV) capacity has topped the 100-gigawatt (GW) milestone and is expected to reach 200 GW by the year 2015. More than 90% of the installed PV capacity employs bulk-silicon solar cells. Engineering problems that include thermal and optical challenges hav...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IEEE
2013-01-01
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| Series: | IEEE Journal of the Electron Devices Society |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6589128/ |
| _version_ | 1818927690070097920 |
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| author | Rajendra Singh Githin Francis Alapatt Akhlesh Lakhtakia |
| author_facet | Rajendra Singh Githin Francis Alapatt Akhlesh Lakhtakia |
| author_sort | Rajendra Singh |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Globally, the cumulative installed photovoltaic (PV) capacity has topped the 100-gigawatt (GW) milestone and is expected to reach 200 GW by the year 2015. More than 90% of the installed PV capacity employs bulk-silicon solar cells. Engineering problems that include thermal and optical challenges have not permitted the large-scale commercialization of concentration PV systems, lack of functional reliability-and the concomitant lack of economic bankability-being a major barrier. For increasing the efficiency of single-junction cells beyond the Shockley-Queisser limit, several approaches based on concepts such as multiple exciton generation, carrier multiplication, hot-carrier extraction, etc., have been proposed; however, these do not seem to be commercially viable. Since both bulk-silicon and thin-film (amorphous silicon, cadmium telluride, and copper indium gallium selenide) solar cells remain as the only two commercially viable options for terrestrial PV applications, a multi-terminal multi-junction architecture appears promising for inexpensive PV electricity generation with efficiency exceeding the currently feasible 25%. The architecture exploits the present commercial silicon solar cells along with abundant and ultra-low-cost materials such as Cu2O. With the availability of well-controlled manufacturing processes at the sub 2-nm length scale, it will become possible to manufacture ultra-high efficiency and ultra-low cost PV electricity generation modules based on silicon. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-20T03:17:01Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-e3d55464f6de43f98aecc9eb251f9de9 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2168-6734 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-20T03:17:01Z |
| publishDate | 2013-01-01 |
| publisher | IEEE |
| record_format | Article |
| series | IEEE Journal of the Electron Devices Society |
| spelling | doaj.art-e3d55464f6de43f98aecc9eb251f9de92022-12-21T19:55:19ZengIEEEIEEE Journal of the Electron Devices Society2168-67342013-01-011612914410.1109/JEDS.2013.22808876589128Making Solar Cells a Reality in Every Home: Opportunities and Challenges for Photovoltaic Device DesignRajendra Singh0Githin Francis Alapatt1Akhlesh Lakhtakia2Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USADepartment of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USADepartment of Engineering Science and Mechanics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USAGlobally, the cumulative installed photovoltaic (PV) capacity has topped the 100-gigawatt (GW) milestone and is expected to reach 200 GW by the year 2015. More than 90% of the installed PV capacity employs bulk-silicon solar cells. Engineering problems that include thermal and optical challenges have not permitted the large-scale commercialization of concentration PV systems, lack of functional reliability-and the concomitant lack of economic bankability-being a major barrier. For increasing the efficiency of single-junction cells beyond the Shockley-Queisser limit, several approaches based on concepts such as multiple exciton generation, carrier multiplication, hot-carrier extraction, etc., have been proposed; however, these do not seem to be commercially viable. Since both bulk-silicon and thin-film (amorphous silicon, cadmium telluride, and copper indium gallium selenide) solar cells remain as the only two commercially viable options for terrestrial PV applications, a multi-terminal multi-junction architecture appears promising for inexpensive PV electricity generation with efficiency exceeding the currently feasible 25%. The architecture exploits the present commercial silicon solar cells along with abundant and ultra-low-cost materials such as Cu2O. With the availability of well-controlled manufacturing processes at the sub 2-nm length scale, it will become possible to manufacture ultra-high efficiency and ultra-low cost PV electricity generation modules based on silicon.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6589128/Manufacturingmulti-terminal multi-junction architecturenano-siliconphotovoltaics |
| spellingShingle | Rajendra Singh Githin Francis Alapatt Akhlesh Lakhtakia Making Solar Cells a Reality in Every Home: Opportunities and Challenges for Photovoltaic Device Design IEEE Journal of the Electron Devices Society Manufacturing multi-terminal multi-junction architecture nano-silicon photovoltaics |
| title | Making Solar Cells a Reality in Every Home: Opportunities and Challenges for Photovoltaic Device Design |
| title_full | Making Solar Cells a Reality in Every Home: Opportunities and Challenges for Photovoltaic Device Design |
| title_fullStr | Making Solar Cells a Reality in Every Home: Opportunities and Challenges for Photovoltaic Device Design |
| title_full_unstemmed | Making Solar Cells a Reality in Every Home: Opportunities and Challenges for Photovoltaic Device Design |
| title_short | Making Solar Cells a Reality in Every Home: Opportunities and Challenges for Photovoltaic Device Design |
| title_sort | making solar cells a reality in every home opportunities and challenges for photovoltaic device design |
| topic | Manufacturing multi-terminal multi-junction architecture nano-silicon photovoltaics |
| url | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6589128/ |
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