EE 555 Renewable Energy Systems

Project Proposal

Thin Film Solar Cells

Group members:
Aahmed Naim Ismail 2014-100-013
Hafiz Basim Raza 2015-100-065

Contents:

1. Problem Statement..

2. Introduction.................

3. Project Deliverables..

4. Design and Execution ..

5. Proposed Timeline..

6. Reference.

Problem Statement:

The issue taken at hand in this project will be to address how the thin film
solar cell is different from the majority of the other more popular cells in its
working criteria and usage. The project will discuss the advancing
applicability of the thin film solar cells in our world and the improvement in
the current usage of thin film solar cells in our daily lives. It shall also cover
how a thin film has an edge over other solar cell types in the range of its
applicability and incorporation of our daily lives.

Introduction:

The inspiration behind the project is simply to find ways to reduce the cost of
energy consumption in our daily lives. Monocrystalline Silicon cells have the
majority of market share today, but due to the constraint in its usage and its
high cost, the inspiration is to find ways to incorporate the use to thin film
solar cells in our daily lives to reduce the dependency on thermally produced
energy.
The focus of the project will be simply to highlight the advantages of thin film
cells over other types. To discuss substantially the use of thin film cells in the
world currently and how to improve the usage of these cells by showing
simulations and viability reports.
The high cost of crystalline silicon wafers has led the industry to look at less
expensive materials to make solar cells. The selected materials have all been
strong light absorbers. They also only need to be about 1 micron thick, so
materials costs can be significantly reduced.
The most common materials used are amorphous silicon (a-Si), or the
polycrystalline materials: cadmium telluride (CdTe), copper indium (gallium),
and diselenide (CIS or CIGS). Each of these materials can be deposited over a
large area onto substrates of about 1 meter, and hence can be used for high
volume manufacturing. The thin film semiconductor layers are deposited onto
either coated glass or a stainless steel sheet. A transparent conducting oxide

layer forms the front electrical contact of the cell, and a metal layer forms the
rear contact.
Amorphous silicon is the most developed of the complex thin film
technologies. In its simplest form, the cell structure has a single sequence of pi-n layers. Such cells suffer from significant degradation in their power output
(in the range of 15-35%) when exposed to the sun. Thinner layers can be used
to increase the electric field strength across the material and to provide better
stability. However, the use of thinner layers reduces light absorption, and
hence cell efficiency.
The industry has developed tandem and even triple layer devices that contain
p-i-n cells, stacked one on top of the other. In the cell, at the base of the
structure, the a-Si is sometimes alloyed with germanium to reduce its band
gap and to further improve light absorption. This added complexity has a
downside though; the processes are more complicated, and process yields are
likely to be lower.
Thin film cells are laminated to produce a weather-resistant and
environmentally-robust module. Although they are less efficient, thin films are
potentially cheaper than c-Si because of their lower materials costs and larger
substrate.
One interesting avenue for further development of amorphous silicon is the
use of microcrystalline silicon, which seeks to combine the stable high
efficiencies of c-Si technology with the simpler and cheaper large-area
deposition technology of a-Si.
The significance of the this project will be shown by the importance of
development of technologies related to thin film, for example, emerging thin
film technologies are starting to make significant progress in grid-connect
markets, but crystalline technologies continue to dominate. Thin films have
long held a niche position in low power (<50W) and consumer electronics
applications. Thin film may offer particular design options for building
integrated applications.
Thus what we aim to accomplish from this project is to find ways of improving
the use of thin film cells studying their properties and deriving more ideas to
use these cells in various other fields of low power operations. .

Project Deliverables:

Basically this project will be a research report on thin film solar cells focusing
on CIGs cells, one of the leading technologies in polycrystalline thin films.
1) An Introduction to thin film solar cell:
This research report will give an in-depth analysis of thin film solar cells
how they emerged and why they contain a major portion of the market.
2) Main differentiating properties of the thin film cell over other types and its
advantages
How thin film solar cell have an advantage over crystalline solar cell and
the perspective on how thy might take their place in future.
3) Current usage of thin film cells
Places where these are used on commercial scale in industry and both on
residential scale for multipurpose
4) Proposition of better ways to use the cell in accordance to its properties by
the use of simulations and viabilities.
Keeping in view of one of the latest highly favorable technologies CIGS
will be taken into consideration. Its structure will be discussed along
with properties. Also some mechanisms will be discussed which happen
during fabrication to improve its efficiency.
If we have time left then we will do a simulation of CIGS solar cells,
provided we get any analytical model of the cell which will depict the
key pointers determining the efficiency of solar cell and how they are
effected by the change in physical parameters of the cell.

Design and Execution (Hardware plan/analytical

study/viability analysis/simulation etc:
As it is a research report, it will be largely depending on the data mined. Also
it will provide the reader a detailed report not only on thin film solar cells but
also understanding the key factors that could affect the efficiency of a cell,
CIGs to be taken in particular. Since it is relatively new technology an
analytical study will be carried out to show that on what behalfs it has C-Si
like efficiencies while still being considered as a thin film solar cell. Later,
schemes will be discussed to produces certain changes in the solar cell
structure and whether they could be viable in terms of cost, efficiency or even
the complexity of the fabrication process

Proposed Timeline:

Here students are required to give a time plan of their project.

15th Nov- 21st Nov
21stNov 28 Nov
28th Nov- 5th Dec
5th Dec- 15 Dec

Collection of Data
Literature review for thin film solar
cells
Analytical study of CIGs cells
Viability research for the suggested
modifications*

** That solely depends on whether we are able to find a executable model of

CIGss in which some change can be made. Otherwise, we will focus on the
latest insights that are used to increase the efficiency of these cells

Reference:
[1] http://www.solarbuzz.com/going-solar/understanding/technologies
[2] http://phys.org/news190984617.html
[3] http://www.solar-facts-and-advice.com/cadmium-telluride.html
[4] http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1781&context=etd
[5] http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1176&context=ecetr