Get Martin Green Chapter 4 Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells Form

Second generation cells are thin film solar cells, that include amorphous silicon, CdTe and CIGS cells and are commercially significant in utility-scale photovoltaic power stations, building integrated photovoltaics or in small stand-alone power system.

Second-generation cells are thin-film technologies that are often commercially available, such as copper indium selenide (CIGS), cadmium telluride (CdTe), arsenide (GaAs) and amorphous silicon (a-Si:H).

Solar cells are made from silicon boules. These are polycrystalline structures that have the atomic structure of a single crystal. The most commonly used method for the creation of the boule is known as the Czochralski method. During this process, a seed crystal of silicon is dipped into melted polycrystalline silicon.

Solar cells can be classified into first, second and third generation cells. The first generation cells—also called conventional, traditional or wafer-based cells—are made of crystalline silicon, the commercially predominant PV technology, that includes materials such as polysilicon and monocrystalline silicon.

The process was discovered as early as 1839, but the first solar cell was introduced by Bell executives in 1954. The first generation of solar cells was produced on silicon wafers either using monocrystalline or polycrystalline silicon crystals.

Crystalline silicon cells are made of silicon atoms connected to one another to form a crystal lattice. This lattice provides an organized structure that makes conversion of light into electricity more efficient.

Crystalline silicon (c-Si) cells are obtained from thin slices of silicon (wafers) 160–240 μm thick, cut from a single crystal or a block. The type of crystalline cell produced depends on the silicon wafer manufacturing process. The main types of crystalline cells are: monocrystalline.

Crystalline silicon photovoltaics are modules built using crystalline silicon solar cells (c-Si), developed from the microelectronics technology industry. Crystalline silicon solar cells have high efficiency, making crystalline silicon photovoltaics an interesting technology where space is at a premium.