AltEnToday

Looking around at some solar industry sites, I’ve realized there’s quite a bit of jargon and shorthand that I don’t fully understand yet. Overall, a cell’s crystalinity is a description of the amount of order within the cell, so a high-level of order yields a higher level of crystalinity.

Crystal-Si: Crystalline Silicon - Single Crystalline Silicon means that the entire cell is built from the same single piece of silicon crystal. According to the EERE (Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy sub-department of the Department of Energy) the silicon still needs to be “doped” to perform as a photovoltaic (PV) panel.

Ribbon-Si: Ribbon Silicon - Ribbon silicon is still silicon based, but instead of being grown in a single crystalline form, the silicon is “ribboned” as it’s laid down. This provides the benefit of not having to be entirely as pure in production, but doesn’t provide as much performance as Czochralski (CZ) or Float-Zone (FZ) silicon wafers.

Thin-Film Solar Cell - A “Thin-Film” solar cell is an exciting field of research which includes cells that are measured in micro- and nano- scale as active energy production films. Thin-film is intriguing because it means that you can produce larger volumes of photovoltaic material with the same or less inputs. Thin-film may be malleable, meaning it can be laid on a wide range of surfaces. And finally, thin-film has an advantage in that it can be contained within a variety of sealing and protective materials without significantly degrading its conductivity.

To continue down the jargon-train, there are various types of thin-film technologies. One of them appears to be Amorphous silicon, which means a silicon wafer that can be bended. The other type is nano-crystalline thin-film, which is a thin film cell that is produced on a nano-crystalline level and can be constructed in a variety of different configurations.

As always, more to come.

Handy Links / Sources, etc.

Solar Energy Technologies Program : Silicon

Advances in OptoElectronics Article on Silicon Thin-Film Solar Cells

Amorphous Semiconductors Research Group - What does Amorphous Silicon mean?