LOVELY SCHOOL OF TECNOLOGY & SCIENCE

TERM PAPER OF PHYSICS TOPIC: SOLAR CELL

SUBMITTED TO: MS.SUMAN RANI DEPTT: PHYSICS (LSTS) LPU (PHAGWARA) SUBMITTED BY: KAVITA DAGAR ROLL NO.: R255B54 SECTION: 255 REG NO.: 10802190

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Behind every achievement lies an unfathomable sea of gratitude to those who actuated it, without whom it would ever have come into existence. To them I say the word of gratitude not just I imprint this report but also deep in my heart. I express my deep sense of indebtedness LSTS (Lovely school of technology and sciences) for giving me opportunity for pursuing this term paper.

CONTENTS
1. INTRODUTION 2. HISTORY 3. WORKING 4. CHARACTERISTICS 5. TYPE 6. PHOTOGENERATION 7. LIMITATION 8. SCIENTIST NAME 9. USES 10. APLLICATION 11. BIBLOGRAPHY

SOLAR CELL

Introduction
The basic idea of a solar cell is to convert light energy into electrical energy. The energy of light is transmitted by photons, small packets or quantum of light. Electrical energy is stored in electromagnetic fields, which in turn can make a current of electrons flow. Thus a solar cell converts light, a flow of photons, to electric current, a flow of electrons. When photons are absorbed by matter in the solar cell, their energy excites electrons higher energy states where the electrons can move more freely. The perhaps most well-known example of this is the photoelectric effect, where photons give electrons in a metal enough energy to escape the surface. In an ordinary material, if the electrons are not given enough energy to escape, they would soon relax back to their ground states. In a solar cell however, the way it is put together prevents this from happening. The electrons are instead forced to one side of the solar cell, where the build-up of negative charge makes a current flow through an external circuit. The current ends up at the other side (or terminal) of the solar cell, where the electrons once again enter the ground state, as they have lost energy in the external circuit.

HISTORY

Main article: Timeline of solar cells The term "photovoltaic" comes from the Greek f?? (Pops) meaning "light", and "voltaic", meaning electrical, from the name of the Italian physicist Volta, after whom a unit of electrical potential, the volt, is named. The term "photo-voltaic" has been in use in English since 1849.[2] The photovoltaic effect was first recognized in 1839 by French physicist A. E. Becquerel. However, it was not until 1883 that the first solar cell was built, by Charles Fritts, who coated the semiconductor selenium with an extremely thin layer of gold to form the junctions. The device was only around 1% efficient. Sven Ason Berglund had a number of patent concerning methods of increasing the capacity of these cells. Russell Ohl patented the modern junction semiconductor solar cell in 1946 (U.S. Patent 2,402,662 , "Light sensitive device"), which was discovered while working on the series of advances that would lead to the transistor. The modern age of solar power technology arrived in 1954 when Bell Laboratories, experimenting with semiconductors, accidentally found that silicon doped with certain impurities was very sensitive to light. This resulted in the production of the first practical solar cells with a sunlight energy conversion efficiency of around 6 percent. The first spacecraft to use solar panels was the US satellite Vanguard 1, launched in March 1958 with solar cells made by Hoffman Electronics. This milestone created interest in producing and launching a geostationary communications satellite, in which solar energy would provide a viable power supply.

Working
Results on the boundary of the layers. Solar cells are composed of various semiconducting materials. Semiconductors

are materials, which become electrically conductive when supplied with light or heat, but which operate as insulators at low temperatures. Over 95% of all the solar cells produced worldwide are composed of the semiconductor material Silicon (Si). As the second most abundant element in earth`s crust, silicon has the advantage, of being available in sufficient quantities, and additionally processing the material does not burden the environment. To produce a solar cell, the semiconductor is contaminated or "doped". "Doping" is the intentional introduction of chemical elements, with which one can obtain a surplus of either positive charge carriers (p-conducting semiconductor layer) or negative charge carriers (n-conducting semiconductor layer) from the semiconductor material. If two differently contaminated semiconductor layers are combined, then a so-called p-n-junction.

CHARACTERISTICS

model of a crystalline solar cell :

At this junction, an interior electric field is built up which leads to the separation of the charge carriers that are released by light. Through metal contacts, an electric charge can be tapped. If the outer circuit is closed, meaning a consumer is connected, then direct current flows. Silicon cells are approximately 10 cm by 10 cm large (recently also 15 cm by 15 cm). A transparent anti-reflection film protects the cell and decreases reflective loss on the cell surface.

Characteristics of a Solar Cell:

The usable voltage from solar cells depends on the semiconductor material. In silicon it amounts to approximately 0.5 V. Terminal voltage is only weakly dependent on light radiation, while the current intensity increases with higher luminosity. A 100 cm silicon cell, for example, reaches a maximum current intensity of approximately 2 A when radiated by 1000 W/m. 1. current-voltage line of a solar cell The output (product of electricity and voltage) of a solar cell is temperature dependent. Higher cell temperatures lead to lower output, and hence to lower efficiency. The level of efficiency indicates how much of the radiated quantity of light is converted into useable electrical energy.

TYPE OF CELL
One can distinguish three cell

types according to the type of crystal: monocrystalline, polycrystalline and amorphous. To produce a monocrystalline silicon cell, absolutely pure semiconducting material is necessary. Monocrystalline rods are extracted from melted silicon and then sawed into thin plates. This production process guarantees a relatively high level of efficiency. The production of polycrystalline cells is more cost-efficient. In this process, liquid silicon is poured into blocks that are subsequently sawed into plates. During solidification of the material, crystal structures of varying sizes are formed, at whose borders defects emerge. As a result of this crystal defect, the solar cell is less efficient. If a silicon film is deposited on glass or another substrate material, this is a so-called amorphous or thin layer cell. The layer thickness amounts to less than 1m (thickness of a human hair: 50-100 m), so the production costs are lower due to the low material costs. However, the efficiency of amorphous cells is much lower than that of the other two cell types. Because of this, they are primarily used in low power equipment (watches, pocket calculators) or as facade elements.

PHOTOGENERATION
When a photon hits a piece of silicon, one of three things can

happen: the photon can pass straight through the silicon this (generally) happens for lower energy photons, the photon can reflect off the surface, the photon can be absorbed by the silicon, if the photon energy is higher than the silicon band gap value. This generates an electronhole pair and sometimes heat, depending on the band structure. When a photon is absorbed, its energy is given to an electron in the crystal lattice. Usually this electron is in the valence band, and is tightly bound in covalent bonds between neighboring atoms, and hence unable to move far. The energy given to it by the photon "excites" it into the conduction band, where it is free to move around within the semiconductor. The covalent bond that the electron was previously a part of now has one fewer electron this is known as a hole. The presence of a missing covalent bond allows the bonded electrons of neigh boring atoms to move into the "hole," leaving another hole behind, and in this way a hole can move through the lattice. Thus, it can be said that photons absorbed in the semiconductor create mobile electron-hole pairs. A photon need only have greater energy than that of the band gap in order to excite an electron from the valence band into the conduction band.

LIMITATION
Solar cells operate as quantum energy conversion devices, and are therefore subject to the "Thermodynamic Efficiency Limit". Photons with energy below

the band gap of the absorber material cannot generate a holeelectron pair, and so their energy is not converted to useful output and only generates heat if absorbed. For photons with energy above the band gap energy, only a fraction of the energy above the band gap can be converted to useful output. When a photon of greater energy is absorbed, the excess energy above the band gap is converted to kinetic energy of the carrier combination. The excess kinetic energy is converted to heat through phonon interactions as the kinetic energy of the carriers slows to equilibrium velocity. Solar cells with multiple band gap absorber materials are able to more efficiently convert the solar spectrum. By using multiple band gaps, the solar spectrum may be broken down into smaller bins where the thermodynamic efficiency limit is higher for each bin.

Scientist Name
APJ Abdul Kalam - Masterminded India's missile program Arindam Chaudhuri - Economics professor and management consultant

Ashok Jhunjhunwala - Professor of electrical engineering, IIT Chennai Avul Pakir Jainulabddin Abdul Kalam - Brief profile of missile scientist Brahmagupta - 5 th century mathematician G V Loganathan - Profile of engineering Professor killed in 2007 Virginia Tech shootings Gandhian Missile Man - Profile and achievements of nuclear scientist Abdul Kalam Kalpana Chawla - Profile of NASA astronaut Kalpana Chawla - Profile and experience of NASA astronaut Lakshmi Devi - Professor of Pharmacology, New York University School of Medicine

USES
Space: 1. Solar cells are very useful in powering space vehicles such as satellites and telescopes (e.g. Hubble). They provide a

very economical and reliable way of powering objects which would otherwise need expensive and cumbersome fuel sources. 2. The international space station is also another good example of solar cells being used in space. When it is finished, the station will have the most powerful solar array in space. Four sets of gold coloured wings (each one being 72 metres long and larger than the space station itself) will contain 250,000 solar cells and the whole array will be able to power a small neighbourhood. 3. Solar cells are also being used to power the rovers which will be examining the surface of Mars in early 2004. 4. Solar powered vehicles Solar powered cars are cars which are powered by an array of photovoltaic cells. The electricity created by the solar cells either directly powers the vehicle through a motor, or goes into a storage battery.

Applications and implementations

See the article solar panel for information about applications and implementations of solar cells and panels. Cost analysis

The US retail module costs are in the $3.50 to $5.00/WP range (see SolarBuzz). Additional installation costs for a residential rooftop retrofit in California (CA) is around $3.50/Wp or more. So on the low side, installed system costs are about $7.00/Wp in CA, and probably higher in places with less experience. Federal, state, utility, and other subsidies combined pay about half the cost. So CA rule of thumb is that the installed system PV will cost you at the low end, $3.50/Wp. Under net metering, one offsets regular retail utility rate which for CA is about 11 cents/kWh. Knowing installed system costs, amount of sunshine, and the utility rates, one can figure out the years till payback with or without financing costs. Assuming no financing costs and a $6/Wp installed system cost (lower than current $7), one can take sunshine and utility rate information from around the globe and come up with a payback graph such as shown below. The addition of subsidies brings down the years to payback proportionately. For example, if the years to payback were 24 years at $6/Wp, and subsidies brought that down to $3/Wp, the years to payback would be 12.

BIBLOGRAPHY
1.www.solarcellsales.com 2. www.sciencentral.com

3. www.howstuffworks.com 4. www.solarserver.de