Essay On Solar Cells

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Hundreds of solar cells (also called photovoltaic cells) make up a solar photovoltaic (PV) array. Solar cells are the components of solar arrays that convert radiant light from the sun into electricity that is then used to power electrical devices and heat and cool homes and businesses. Solar cells contain materials with semiconducting properties in which their electrons become excited and turned into an electrical current when struck by sunlight. While there are dozens of variations of solar cells, the two most common types are those made of crystalline silicon (both monocrystalline and polycrystalline) and those made with what is called thin film technology. The majority of the solar cells on the market today are made of some type of silicon - by some estimates, 90% of all solar cells are made of silicon. However, silicon can take many different forms. Variations are most distinguished by the purity of the silicon; purity in this sense is the way in which the silicon modules are aligned. The greater the purity of the silicon molecules, the more efficient the solar cell is …show more content…

CZ Si is free from lattice defects; however, it contains residual impurities such as oxygen, carbon, and transition-metal ions. Oxygen introduced from a quartz crucible is beneficial for microelectronics, because the oxygen strengthens the wafers and can also be used for guttering defects from wafer surfaces. Oxygen reacts with the boron to form an electronically active defect that limits the quality of the material after illumination [4]. Magnetic confinement is used to reduce the amount of oxygen by transferring material from the crucible within the melt. Si grown by the float zone (FZ) process is the preferable method for solar cells of highest efficiencies because it has the lowest recombination losses. FZ Si with diffusion lengths up to 800 lm for 1 X cm material can be

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