{"title":"Nonradiative trapping and localization in intermediate band solar cells","authors":"J. Krich","doi":"10.1109/PVSC-VOL2.2013.7179242","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/PVSC-VOL2.2013.7179242","url":null,"abstract":"For intermediate band solar cells (IBSC) to achieve high efficiency, the gains in light absorption due to the intermediate band (IB) must exceed the nonradiative losses from mid-gap states. An important proposal holds that in IB's formed from bulk doping, when the energy states of the IB are delocalized (i.e., metallic), they do not significantly reduce the nonradiative lifetime. We show that this proposal is incorrect because the motion of the crystal lattice will always relocalize IB states. We compare this result to band-to-band nonradiative recombination, which is well known to be slow. For IBSC's to realize their potential, research must move away from delocalizing IB states.","PeriodicalId":413736,"journal":{"name":"2013 IEEE 39th Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC) PART 2","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129606078","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
W. V. van Sark, P. Muizebelt, J. Cace, A. de Vries, P. de Rijk
{"title":"Price development of photovoltaic modules, inverters, and systems in The Netherlands in 2012","authors":"W. V. van Sark, P. Muizebelt, J. Cace, A. de Vries, P. de Rijk","doi":"10.1109/PVSC-VOL2.2013.7179247","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/PVSC-VOL2.2013.7179247","url":null,"abstract":"Since 2010 the Dutch photovoltaic (PV) market has been growing fast, with around doubling of installed capacity in 2011 and 2012. Four quarterly inventories have been made in 2012 for modules, inverters, and systems that are presently available for purchase in the Netherlands. We have found that the average selling price of modules, inverters, and systems decreased with 44.3, 14, and 7.3-10.2 %, respectively: average selling prices are 1.26 €/Wp, 0.41 €/Wp, and 1.46 €/Wp for modules, inverters, and systems on tilted roofs, respectively, at the end of 2012. Average installation costs amount to 0.43 €/Wp. Using an energy yield of 900 kWh/kWp, 25 years system lifetime, 6% discount rate, and 1 % operation and maintenance (O&M) cost, a levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) is calculated for a 2.5 kWp system to be 0.194 €/kWh for a system price of 1.98 €/Wp (including installation). Grid parity conditions are apparent, with electricity retail prices of around 0.23 €/kWh.","PeriodicalId":413736,"journal":{"name":"2013 IEEE 39th Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC) PART 2","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122679614","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"High-efficiency CdS/CdTe solar cells on commercial SnO2:F coated soda-lime glass substrates","authors":"N. Paudel, Yanfa Yan","doi":"10.1109/PVSC-VOL2.2013.7179248","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/PVSC-VOL2.2013.7179248","url":null,"abstract":"High efficiency CdTe-based thin-film solar cells with a superstrate configuration have been fabricated on commercial SnO2:F/SnO2-coated soda-lime glass substrates. The CdS window layers were deposited by magnetron sputtering, and the CdTe absorber layers were deposited by close-spaced sublimation. The back-contacts are elemental Cu/Au bilayers. CdCl2 activations were carried out in dry air. Without antireflection coating, the best small-area cell has shown an efficiency of 15.8% with an open-circuit voltage of 845 mV, a short-circuit current of 24.5 mA/cm2, and a fill-factor of 76.8% measured under an AM1.5 illumination. We find that besides optimizing the growth process of the window and absorber layers and the CdC12 activation steps, incorporating a small amount of oxygen in the CdS window layers is essential for achieving high efficiency CdTe solar cells.","PeriodicalId":413736,"journal":{"name":"2013 IEEE 39th Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC) PART 2","volume":"56 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130729214","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
M. Konagai, S. Kim, Y. Takiguchi, P. Sichanugrist, T. Kobayashi, T. Nakada
{"title":"Development of high-performance solar cells using solar spectrum splitting technique","authors":"M. Konagai, S. Kim, Y. Takiguchi, P. Sichanugrist, T. Kobayashi, T. Nakada","doi":"10.1109/PVSC-VOL2.2013.7179254","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/PVSC-VOL2.2013.7179254","url":null,"abstract":"To increase the performance of solar cells, solar spectrum splitting technique has been considered and studied. It was found from the simulation that the total efficiency of nearly 25% can be obtained at the splitting wavelength of 600 nm for thin-film type solar cell using a-Si and CIGS as the top and bottom cells, respectively. The experiment has been carried out to verify the simulation results. By the optimization of device and splitter, up to now the total efficiency of about 22 % has been obtained at the splitting wavelength of 620 nm which is similar to the simulation results. Further work has been done using InGaP as the top cell instead of a-Si. Up to now an high efficiency of 26% has been measured for InGaP//CIGS configuration using the developed spectrum splitting technique. Higher performance can be expected with c-Si bottom cell or under concentration application. For higher cell efficiency, the configuration using InGaP//GaAs//CIGS using 2 optical splitters has been considered and its potential efficiency has been calculated. It was found that the maximum effiency of more than 30% can be expected with this configuration.","PeriodicalId":413736,"journal":{"name":"2013 IEEE 39th Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC) PART 2","volume":"149 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116355820","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Chien-Ming Chen, Yu-Chia Liao, Wei-Ming Su, Po-Sheng Huang, Li-Wei Cheng
{"title":"Front-side metallization with high aspect ratio by stencil printing for crystal Si solar cell","authors":"Chien-Ming Chen, Yu-Chia Liao, Wei-Ming Su, Po-Sheng Huang, Li-Wei Cheng","doi":"10.1109/pvsc-vol2.2013.7179255","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/pvsc-vol2.2013.7179255","url":null,"abstract":"In order to reduce shading loss and keep low Rs under fine-line printing process, front-side metallization with high aspect ratio is necessary. In this paper, stencil screen with several opening widths are compared with mesh screen. While opening width in mesh screen is confined to about <40um, cells with high series resistance are generated because of the low cross section area of the finger. Nevertheless, stencil printing with 100% open areas could raise the aspect ratio in fine-line printing and effectively improve finger uniformity, leading to lower series resistance. In this work, fingers with aspect ratio over 0.5 have been achieved by stencil printing and kept low width. On the other hand, five pastes with different viscosity are applied to optimize stencil printing for 35μm and 45μm opening width respectively. The paste with higher viscosity has larger aspect ratio but poor printing quality. Finally, through line resistance measurement, larger aspect ratio performed by stencil printing actually exhibits lower resistance than that by mesh printing, making stencil suitable in fine-line printing production. With stencil printing for only fingers, followed by mesh printing of the busbars, +0.06% efficiency gain was achieved compared with single mesh printing as the result of the low resistance and high FF.","PeriodicalId":413736,"journal":{"name":"2013 IEEE 39th Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC) PART 2","volume":"143 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121404787","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
O. Vázquez-Mena, W. Regan, S. Byrnes, Onur Ergen, W. Gannett, Feng Wang, A. Zettl
{"title":"A novel architecture for photovoltaic devices: Field-effect solar cells using screening-engineered nanoelectrodes for silicon and earth abundant cuprous oxide","authors":"O. Vázquez-Mena, W. Regan, S. Byrnes, Onur Ergen, W. Gannett, Feng Wang, A. Zettl","doi":"10.1109/pvsc.2013.6745152","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/pvsc.2013.6745152","url":null,"abstract":"A field effect cuprous oxide solar cell device based on a gate that controls carrier concentration in semiconductors and using screening-engineered nanostructured electrodes is presented. The cell works in inversion mode, with a top gate that forms a depletion layer and a p-n junction, and with nanostructured electrodes that collect the photocurrent across the junction. This device does not require any doping process or a heterojunction, opening a novel route for materials that are difficult to dope. As a proof of principle, we present experimental results of a silicon field effect solar cell. To demonstrate the potential of this configuration for alternative materials, we present a field-effect solar cell made of earth abundant cuprous oxide, which has a favorable band gap but that is difficult to dope. We show the synthesis of the material, the effect of the gate on the carrier concentration and a photovoltaic power conversion efficiency of ~0.2%.","PeriodicalId":413736,"journal":{"name":"2013 IEEE 39th Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC) PART 2","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116677696","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}