Sliver cells are thin, single-crystal silicon solar cells fabricated using standard fabrication technology. Sliver modules, composed of several thousand individual Sliver cells, can be efficient, low-cost, bifacial, transparent, flexible, shadow tolerant, and lightweight. Compared with current PV technology, mature Sliver technology will need 10&#x25; of the pure silicon and fewer than 5&#x25; of the wafer starts per MW of factory output. This paper deals with two distinct challenges related to Sliver cell and Sliver module production: providing a mature and robust Sliver cell fabrication method which produces a high yield of highly efficient Sliver cells, and which is suitable for transfer to industry; and, handling, electrically interconnecting, and encapsulating billions of sliver cells at low cost. Sliver cells with efficiencies of 20&#x25; have been fabricated at ANU using a reliable, optimised processing sequence, while low-cost encapsulation methods have been demonstrated using a submodule technique.

Evan Franklin

Vernie Everett

Andrew Blakers

Klaus Weber

Sliver Solar Cells: High-Efficiency, Low-Cost PV Technology

We introduced the structure and the principle of dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC). The latest results about the critical technology and the industrialization research on dye-sensitized solar cells were reviewed. The development of key components, including nanoporous semiconductor films, dye sensitizers, redox electrolyte, counter electrode, and conducting substrate in dye-sensitized solar cells was reviewed in detail. The developing progress and prospect of dye-sensitized solar cells from small cells in the laboratory to industrialization large-scale production were reviewed. At last, the future development of DSC was prospective for the tendency of dye-sensitized solar cells.

Fan-Tai Kong

Song-Yuan Dai

Kong-Jia Wang

Review of Recent Progress in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

The current cost distribution of a crystalline silicon PV module is clearly dominated by material costs, especially by the costs of the silicon wafer. Therefore cell designs that allow the use of thinner wafers and the increase of energy conversion efficiency are of special interest to the PV industry. This article gives an overview of the most critical issues to achieve this aim and of the recent activities at Fraunhofer ISE and other institutes.

S. W. Glunz

High-Efficiency Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells

We report work progress on the growth of Si quantum dots in different matrices for future photovoltaic applications. The work reported here seeks to engineer a wide-bandgap silicon-based thin-film material by using quantum confinement in silicon quantum dots and to utilize this in complete thin-film silicon-based tandem cell, without the constraints of lattice matching, but which nonetheless gives an enhanced efficiency through the increased spectral collection efficiency. Coherent-sized quantum dots, dispersed in a matrix of silicon carbide, nitride, or oxide, were fabricated by precipitation of Si-rich material deposited by reactive sputtering or PECVD. Bandgap opening of Si QDs in nitride is more blue-shifted than that of Si QD in oxide, while clear evidence of quantum confinement in Si quantum dots in carbide was hard to obtain, probably due to many surface and defect states. The PL decay shows that the lifetimes vary from 10 to 70 microseconds for diameter of 3.4&#x2009;nm dot with increasing detection wavelength.

Eun-Chel Cho

Martin A. Green

Gavin Conibeer

Dengyuan Song

Young-Hyun Cho

Giuseppe Scardera

Shujuan Huang

Sangwook Park

X.  J. Hao

Yidan Huang

Lap Van Dao

Silicon Quantum Dots in a Dielectric Matrix for All-Silicon Tandem Solar Cells

A simplified nanosphere lithography process has been developed which allows fast and low-waste maskings of Si surfaces for subsequent reactive ion etching (RIE) texturing. Initially, a positive surface charge is applied to a wafer surface by dipping in a solution of aluminum nitrate. Dipping the positive-coated wafer into a solution of negatively charged silica beads (nanospheres) results in the spheres becoming electrostatically attracted to the wafer surface. These nanospheres form an etch mask for RIE. After RIE texturing, the reflection of the surface is reduced as effectively as any other nanosphere lithography method, while this batch process used for masking is much faster, making it more industrially relevant.

Daniel Inns

Patrick Campbell

Kylie Catchpole

Wafer Surface Charge Reversal as a Method of Simplifying Nanosphere Lithography for Reactive Ion Etch Texturing of Solar Cells

The two-component kinetic model employing &#8220;fast&#8221; and &#8220;slow&#8221; metastable defects for the annealing behaviors in pin-type hydrogenated-amorphous-silicon- (a-Si:H-) based solar cells is simulated using a normalized fill factor. Reported annealing data on pin-type a-Si:H-based solar cells are revisited and fitted using the model to confirm its validity. It is verified that the two-component model is suitable for fitting the various experimental phenomena. In addition, the activation energy for annealing of the solar cells depends on the definition of the recovery time. From the thermally activated and high electric field annealing behaviors, the plausible microscopic mechanism on the defect removal process is discussed.

Seung Yeop Myong

Annealing Kinetic Model Using Fast and Slow Metastable Defects for Hydrogenated-Amorphous-Silicon-Based Solar Cells

This paper gives a review of some recent developments in the field of contactless silicon wafer 
    characterization techniques based on lifetime spectroscopy and infrared imaging. In the first part of the 
    contribution, we outline the status of different lifetime spectroscopy approaches suitable for the 
    identification of impurities in silicon and discuss&#x2014;in more detail&#x2014;the technique of temperature- and 
    injection-dependent lifetime spectroscopy. The second part of the paper focuses on the application 
    of infrared cameras to analyze spatial inhomogeneities in silicon wafers. By measuring the infrared 
    signal absorbed or emitted from light-generated free excess carriers, high-resolution recombination 
    lifetime mappings can be generated within seconds to minutes. In addition, mappings of 
    non-recombination-active trapping centers can be deduced from injection-dependent infrared lifetime 
    images. The trap density has been demonstrated to be an important additional parameter in the 
    characterization and assessment of solar-grade multicrystalline silicon wafers, as areas of increased 
    trap density tend to deteriorate during solar cell processing.

Jan Schmidt

Peter Pohl

Karsten Bothe

Rolf Brendel

Advances in Contactless Silicon Defect and Impurity Diagnostics Based on Lifetime Spectroscopy and Infrared Imaging

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Advances in OptoElectronics publishes papers on the theory, design, fabrication, and applications of devices and components that convert light into an electrical current or, conversely, an electric current into light.

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