SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAICS- A SOURCE FOR SUSTAINABLE ENERGY

GOURAB DAS
RESEARCH SCHOLAR, CEGESS, BESUS

SUN- THE UNLIMITED SOURCE OF ENERGY

Every day the earth receives thousands of times more energy (~1.51022J) from the sun than is consumed in all other resources by human beings (~1.71018J). Sunlight, in the broad sense, is the total frequency spectrum of electromagnetic radiation given off by the Sun particularly infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light. On Earth, sunlight is filtered through the Earth's atmosphere, and solar radiation is obvious as daylight when the Sun is above the horizon. The spectrum of the Suns solar radiation is close to that of a blackbody with a temperature of about 5,800 K. The Sun emits EM radiation across most of the electromagnetic spectrum. Although the Sun produces Gamma rays as a result of the nuclear fusion process, these super high energy photons are converted to lower energy photons before they reach the Sun's surface and are emitted out into space. As a result the Sun doesn't give off any gamma rays. The Sun does however; emit X-rays, ultraviolet, visible light, infrared, and even radio waves.

Pic.-1: Close view of The Sun

Pic.-2: Radiation spectrum of the Sun

What is Solar cell & Solar photovoltaic?

A solar cell is an electronic device that produces electricity when light falls on it. The light is absorbed and the cell produces dc voltage and current. The device has a positive and a negative contact between which the voltage is generated and through which the current can flow. You connect these contacts to whatever it is you want to power. Effectively they take light energy and convert it into electrical energy in an electrical circuit, exploiting a physical process known as the photovoltaic effect.

Pic.-3: Schematic structure of cell, module & array

Pic.-4: Generation of e-h pair in solar cell

When light is absorbed by matter, photons are given up to excite electrons to higher energy states within the material (the energy difference between the initial and final states is given by Eg= h). Particularly, this occurs when the energy of the photons making up the light is larger than the forbidden band gap of the semiconductor. But the excited electrons relax back quickly to their original or ground state. In a photovoltaic device, there is a built-in asymmetry (due to doping) which pulls the excited electrons away before they can relax, and feeds them to an external circuit. The extra energy of the excited electrons generates a potential difference or electron motive force (e.m.f.). This force drives the electrons through a load in the external circuit to do electrical work. The solar cell is the basic building block of solar photovoltaics. When charged by the sun, this basic unit generates a dc photovoltage of 0.5 to 1.0V and, in short circuit, a photocurrent of some tens of mA/cm2. Since the voltage is too small for most applications, to produce a useful voltage, the cells are connected in series into modules, typically containing about 20 to 24 cells in series to generate a dc output of 12 V. To avoid the complete loss of power when one of the cells in the series fails, a blocking diode is integrated into the module. Modules within arrays are similarly protected to form a photovoltaic generator that is designed to generate power at a certain current and a voltage which is a multiple of 12 V.

Different types of Silicon based solar cells

Mostly three types of silicon (Si) based solar cells are available 1. 2. 3. 4. Crystalline silicon solar cell Polycrystalline silicon solar cell Amorphous silicon solar cell (Thin film) Micromorph solar cell (Thin film)

Though the efficiency of crystalline & poly-crystalline silicon based solar cells (16-19%) are high, but they have a certain disadvantages likea. b. c. d. e. This type of solar cell typically made using silicon wafer which requires expensive manufacturing process. Can not be deposited on flexible substrate Poor performance in low light conditions Indirect band gap semiconductor i.e. thickness of the cell has to be high requiring more material (200micron). Significant loss of efficiency with increase in temperature in warm countries like India.

These disadvantages made researcher to think of new kind of materials or cell structures which require less material to fabricate the solar cell as well as have handsome efficiency. Soon researcher found their material which requires very less material to fabricate a solar cell & also the absorption coefficient of this type of material is very high. Amorphous silicon is the material. Amorphous is a Greek word which has the meanings without order. Amorphous material (silicon) has a lack of long range order and small, disorderly variation in angles between the bonds eliminates the regular lattice structure. Amorphous silicon is a direct band gap semiconductor. Since the absorption coefficient of amorphous silicon is high it requires very less material (1 micron) to absorb the sun energy to convert into electricity. Amorphous silicon absorbs only the visible portion (400nm-750nm) of the Suns spectrum. To fabricate an amorphous silicon solar cell p-i-n structure is used instead of p-n structure used in the case of crystalline silicon solar cell. i-region is current generating region where the maximum Suns spectrum is absorbed. p &n-region creates the voltage in the cell.

Pic.-5: The schematic structure and the band diagram of am amorphous silicon based solar cell

Amorphous silicon based solar cell also has a certain disadvantages likea. Dangling bond (unsaturated valance bond) present in amorphous silicon (10 20-1022 cm-3) which acts as a recombination centre of photogenarated carrier i.e. electron and proton. Thats why generated current is reduced. Dangling bond density can be significantly reduced when a-Si alloyed with H2 (1015-1016cm-3). When a-Si alloyed with H2 hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) formed which creates Si:H bond (3.4ev) which have greater bond strength than Si-Si bond (2.4ev) present in a-Si. Light induced degradation which is also known as Staebler-Wronski effect which refers to light induce metastable changes in the properties of a-Si:H. The defect density i.e. dangling bond density increases due to breaking of weak hydrogen bond with light exposure. This defect increases the recombination current and thus leads to the reduction in the photogenarated current and thus lowered the initial efficiency. It is discovered by David. L. Staebler & Christopher. R. Wronski in 1977. Dark conductivity & Photoconductivity of a-Si:H can be reduced significantly by prolonged illumination with intense light. This effect could be reversed if the sample could be heated above 150 C. Stabilized efficiency is low (8%).

b.

c.

Hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon (uc-Si:H) is the opted material which degrades less than the a-Si. But it absorbs very limited portion of energy of the Suns spectrum (800nm-1100nm).Absorption coefficient of microcrystalline silicon is also low. Thats why current as well as efficiency of microcrystalline silicon based solar cell is low. To makeover this problem a new kind of hybrid cell structure comes into the picture which termed as a MICROMORPH tandem structure. It consists of amorphous silicon based top cell and microcrystalline silicon based bottom cell. MICRO stands for microcrystalline and MORPH stands for amorphous. The normal cell structure of micromorph solar cellGLASS/TCO/p-a-SiC:H/i-a-Si:H/n-a-Si:H/IRL/p-uc-Si:H/i-uc-Si:H/n-uc-Si:H/ZnO/Ag/Al

Pic.-7: Structural configuration of micromorph solar cell

Pic.-8: Microscopic view of different layer of micromorph solar cell

As the absorption coefficient of microcrystalline silicon is lower than the amorphous silicon, uc-Si:H absorber layer is much thicker than the a-Si:H absorber layer to match the photo generated current of a-Si based top cell and uc-Si based bottom cell. Stabilized efficiency of micromorph solar cell (12%) is higher than amorphous silicon solar cell (8%). India with approx. 300 clear sunny days in a year and having high solar insolation is an ideal place for utilising solar energy to meet growing demand for energy. The technology needs to be competitively cheaper as well as a moderate efficiency for more adoption. The costs of solar modules have come down very significantly during the last few years. It is now affordable and expected to be comparable (i.e. cost/unit electricity) with fossil fuel based sources of energy in next 3-5 years. Silicon based thin film solar cells have very high potential of being a significant source of sustainable energy in terms of availability and environmental friendliness.