Semiconductor Materials For Solar Cells

Semiconductor materials are nominally small band gap insulators. The defining property of a semiconductor material is that it can be doped with impurities that alter its electronic properties in a controllable way.

Because of their application in the computer and photovoltaic industry—in devices such as transistors, lasers and solar cells—the search for new semiconductor materials and the improvement of existing materials is an important field of study in materials science.

Most commonly used semiconductor materials are crystalline inorganic solids. These materials are classified according to the periodic table groups of their constituent atoms.

Different semiconductor materials differ in their properties. Thus, in comparison with silicon, compound semiconductors have both advantages and disadvantages. For example, gallium arsenide (GaAs) has six times higher electron mobility than silicon, which allows faster operation; wider band gap, which allows operation of power devices at higher temperatures, and gives lower thermal noise to low power devices at room temperature; its direct band gap gives it more favorable optoelectronic properties than the indirect band gap of silicon; it can be alloyed to ternary and quaternary compositions, with adjustable band gap width, allowing light emission at chosen wavelengths, and allowing e.g. matching to wavelengths with lowest losses in optical fibers. GaAs can be also grown in a semi-insulating form, which is suitable as a lattice-matching insulating substrate for GaAs devices. Conversely, silicon is robust, cheap, and easy to process, whereas GaAs is brittle and expensive, and insulation layers can not be created by just growing an oxide layer; GaAs is therefore used only where silicon is not sufficient.

By alloying multiple compounds, some semiconductor materials are tunable, e.g., in band gap or lattice constant. The result is ternary, quaternary, or even quinary compositions. Ternary compositions allow adjusting the band gap within the range of the involved binary compounds; however, in case of combination of direct and indirect band gap materials there is a ratio where indirect band gap prevails, limiting the range usable for optoelectronics; e.g. AlGaAs LEDs are limited to 660 nm by this. Lattice constants of the compounds also tend to be different, and the lattice mismatch against the substrate, dependent on the mixing ratio, causes defects in amounts dependent on the mismatch magnitude; this influences the ratio of achievable radiative/nonradiative recombinations and determines the luminous efficiency of the device. Quaternary and higher compositions allow adjusting simultaneously the band gap and the lattice constant, allowing increasing radiant efficiency at wider range of wavelengths; for example AlGaInP is used for LEDs . Materials transparent to the generated wavelength of light are advantageous, as this allows more efficient extraction of photons from the bulk of the material. That is, in such transparent materials, light production is not limited to just the surface. Index of refraction is also composition-dependent and influences the extraction efficiency of photons from the material.

Solar Photovoltaic System: A photovoltaic system, also solar PV power system, or PV system, is a power system designed to supply usable solar power by means of photovoltaics. It consists of an arrangement of several components, including solar panels to absorb and convert sunlight into electricity, a solar inverter to change the electrical current from DC to AC, as well as mounting, cabling and other electrical accessories to set-up a working system. It may also use a solar tracking system to improve the system’s overall performance and include an integrated battery solution, as prices for storage devices are expected to decline. Strictly speaking, a solar array only encompasses the ensemble of solar panels, the visible part of the PV system, and does not include all the other hardware, often summarized as balance of system (BOS). Moreover, PV systems convert light directly into electricity and shouldn’t be confused with other technologies, such as concentrated solar power or solar thermal, used for heating and cooling.

Applications of a PV System

According to the “energy point’ website, a PV system has the following applications:

Agriculture: Water-pumping installations (very important in developing Countries): systems of automatic irrigation

• Industry, Telecommunications & Public Services: Cathode protection of gas, oil pipelines and other types of piping; provision of power in general, in particular for limited electric charges (in the order of a few kW) always in areas far from the grid or where power is unreliable (discontinuous electrical supply).
• Radio/television relay stations: telephone devices; stations for data surveying and transmission (meteorological, seismic, for levels of watercourses, indicating the presence of fires), often very useful for civil protection services.
• Lighting of streets, gardens and public transportation stops; street signaling
• Health: Especially for refrigeration, very useful particularly in developing countries for the conservation of vaccines and blood.
• Residential: Power provision (especially lighting) for houses and mountain refuges. Very significant applications of this type in developing countries: photovoltaic systems do not require special maintenance and are easy to install.
• Free Time: For charging boat and camper batteries.