By Hritik Sapra CONSTRUCTION OF A SOLAR CELL- HOW DOES IT WORK?
Photons striking the semiconductor knock the electrons out and
if this semiconductor is connected to an electric circuit, there is a flow of charge and electricity is generated. CONSTRUCTION OF A SOLAR CELL- DIAGRAMMATIC THE P AND N TYPE SEMICONDUCTORS, ELECTRON HOLES P type semiconductors are those created by addition of trivalent impurities such as boron, aluminum or gallium to a semiconductor. It creates electron deficiency called holes. N type semiconductors are created by the addition of pentavalent impurities such as antimony, arsenic or phosphorous to a semiconductor. It greatly increases the conc. of electrons. HOW TO INCREASE QUANTUM EFFICIENCY Quantum eciency is the ratio of electrons produced to the number of photons absorbed. Photovoltaic cells are able to convert sunlight into electricity, providing enough of the most abundant and cleanest energy to cover our energy needs. However, the eciency of current photovoltaics is significantly impeded by the transmission loss of sub-band-gap photons. Photon upconversion is a promising route to circumvent this problem by converting these transmitted sub-band-gap photons into above-band-gap light, where solar cells typically have high quantum eciency. How can this be possible? By using Lanthanide-doped nanoparticles. These particles combine two low energy photons to a higher energy photon so as to increase the quantum eciency of the solar cell BAND GAP ENERGY Band Gap energy of a semiconductor is the minimum energy required to excite an electron that is stuck in its bound state into a free state where it can participate in conduction. When a photon of lower energy strikes the semiconductor all its energy gets converted into heat thus causing the loss of the eciency. When a photon of high energy strikes the semiconductor then excess energy gets covered to heat energy. How can we prevent this? We can make solar cells with multiple layers of semiconductors with dierent band-gap energies so as to reduce the loss of eciency. COMPTON SCATTERING EFFECT Compton scattering, discovered by Arthur Holly Compton, is the inelastic scattering of a photon by a charged particle, usually an electron. It results in a decrease in energy (increase in wavelength) of the photon. This happens with the electrons present in the atmosphere as well as those in the semiconductor. We cannot reduce compton scattering in the semi conductor, however, we can do so in the atmosphere by using inverse Compton eect. Inverse Compton scattering involves the scattering of low energy photons to high energies by ultrarelativistic electrons so that the photons gain and the electrons lose energy. The process is called inverse because the electrons lose energy rather than the photons, the opposite of the standard Compton eect. It takes place when electrons are moving and they ram into the photons HOW DO WE PROPOSE TO DO IT? We place the solar panel in a transparent box ,having a vaccum, emiting high energy beams of electrons from the top. As soon as the electrons strike the photons, they lose energy and the photons gain their energy. This is a hypothesis as of now, we did not have sucient time to perform experiments to confirm this theory. SHADING LOSS PREVENTION USING BYPASS DIODES One way to minimise the eect shading has on a single module in a series string, is to use bypass diodes in the junction box. Bypass diodes allow current to pass around shaded cells and thereby reduce the voltage losses through the module. When a module becomes shaded its bypass diode becomes forward biased and begins to conduct current through itself. All the current greater than the shaded cells new short circuit current is bypassed through the diode, thus reducing drastically the amount of local heating at the shaded area.