Heteroepitaxial film crystal silicon on Al2O3 for solar cells on cube-textured metal foil

Journal Article · Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2011 · Advanced Materials

OSTI ID:1024661

Teplin, Charles W ^[1]; Paranthaman, Mariappan Parans ^[1]; Fanning, Thomas R ^[1]; Alberi, Kirstin ^[2]; Heatherly, Jr, Lee ^[1]; Wee, Sung Hun ^[1]; Kim, Hyun Jung ^[1]; List, III, Frederick Alyious ^[1]; Pineau, Jerry ^[3]; Bornstein, Jon ^[3]; Bowers, Karen ^[3]; Lee, Dominic F ^[1]; Cantoni, Claudia ^[1]; Hane, Steve ^[3]; Schroeter, Paul A ^[1]; Young, David L. ^[2]; Iwaniczko, Eugene ^[2]; Jones, Kim M ^[2]; Branz, Howard M ^[1]

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1. ORNL
2. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
3. Ampulse Corporation, Golden, CO

Crystal silicon is an excellent photovoltaic (PV) semiconductor: silicon is abundant, environmentally benign, capable of high solar conversion efficiencies, and profits from an unparalleled scientific knowledge base. However, the energy-intensive, inefficient and expensive processes that turn sand into a crystal silicon (c-Si) wafer account for more than half of today s Si PV module costs. Because the peak flux of solar energy on Earth is only about 1 kW/m2, large areas must be covered with inexpensive PV to provide for TW-scale electrical power needs. To circumvent the costly wafer fabrication step, it would be ideal to grow 2-20 micron thick PV-quality silicon absorber layers directly from silane gas onto inexpensive substrates at temperatures below 800 C.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: Work for Others (WFO)
• DOE Contract Number: DE-AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1024661
• Journal Information: Advanced Materials, Vol. 4, Issue 9
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
FABRICATION
KNOWLEDGE BASE
PROFITS
SAND
SILANES
SILICON
SOLAR CELLS
SOLAR ENERGY
SUBSTRATES