Photovoltaic Cells - The Next Technological Revolution

Bikash Agarwal
Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering Assam Don Bosco University
agarwal.b77@gmail.com

Abstract Solar electricity produced by photovoltaic solar cells is one of the most promising options yet identified for sustainably providing the world's future energy requirements. Although the technology has, in the past, been based on the same silicon wafers as used in microelectronics, a transition is in progress to a second generation of a potentially much lower-cost thin-"lm technology. Cost reductions from both increased manufacturing volume and such improved technology are expected to continue to drive down cell prices over the coming two decades to a level where the cells can provide competitively priced electricity on a large scale. The subsidised, urban residential rooftop application of photovoltaics is expected to provide the major application of the coming decade and to provide the market growth needed to reduce prices. Large centralised solar photovoltaic power stations able to provide low-cost electricity on a large scale would become increasingly attractive approaching 2020 The photovoltaic market is booming with over 30% per annum compounded growth over the last five years. The government-subsidised urbanresidential use of photovoltaics, particularly in Germany and Japan, is driving this sustained growth. Most of the solar cells being supplied to this market are _first generation_ devices based on crystalline or multi-crystalline silicon wafers. Second generation thin-film solar cells based on amorphous silicon/hydrogen alloys or polycrystalline compound semiconductors are starting to appear on the market in increasing volume. Bulk crystalline silicon solar cells have been the workhorse of the photovoltaic industry over the past decades. Recent major investments in new manufacturing facilities for monocrystalline and multicrystalline wafer-based cells, as well as for closely related silicon ribbon and sheet approaches, ensure this role will continue well into the future. Such investments suggest that the silicon wafer-based approach has successfully withstood the challenge mounted by thin-film chalcogenide based cells, in the form of polycrystalline films of CdTe and CuInSe , as well as that mounted by thin-film cells based on 2 amorphous silicon and its alloys with germanium. The encumbent now faces a fresh challenge by a new wave of thin-film technologies developed in the 1990s, more closely related to the bulk approach and with some advantages over the earlier contenders. One new approach is based on a stack of two silicon thin-film cells, one cell using amorphous silicon and the other mixed-phase microcrystalline silicon. The second uses silicon thin-films in polycrystalline form deposited onto glass, even more directly capturing the strengths of the wafer-based approach. KEYWORDS: Silicon, Crystalline, wafer, substrate, thin-film

1. INTRODUCTION Solar cells, or photovoltaic cells, transform light, usually sunlight, into electric current. Few power-generation technologies are as clean as photovoltaics (PV). As it silently generates electricity, PV produces no air pollution or hazardous waste. It doesn't require liquid or gaseous fuels to be transported or combusted. And because sunlight is free and abundant, PV systems, especially baseload Space Solar Power, may eliminate uncertainties surrounding oil, gas, or other energy fuel supplies from politically unstable regions. Because PV systems burn no fuel and have no moving parts, they are clean and silent, producing no atmospheric emissions or greenhouse gases to cause detrimental effects on our water, air, and soil. Compared with electricity generated from fossil fuels, each PV-produced kilowatt eliminates up to 830 pounds of

nitrogen oxides, 1,500 pounds of sulfur dioxide, and 217,000 pounds of carbon dioxide, every year, according to National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) research 1. Photovoltaics involves the direct conversion of sunlight into electricity in thin layers of material known as semiconductors with properties intermediate between those of metals and insulators. Silicon, the material of microelectronics and the information age, is the most common semiconductor. In the latter half of the 20th century, silicon photovoltaic solar cells started to be used mainly to generate small amounts of electricity in remote areas where there was no conventional source of electricity. In the 21st century, photovoltaics will grow to maturity. Almost everyone will be aware of photovoltaics since photovoltaic solar cells will be on the roof of their home or that of their neighbours be they in one of the growing mega

cities across the globe or in a remote rural village. The big problem with solar energy collected on earth is that the sun doesnt shine 24 hours every day. Anywhere, even highly favourable locations, such as the Arizona desert, only provide acceptable sunshine for power production about six hours per day. Most locations have fewer hours of sun and often clouds, fog, precipitation or haze for long periods, not to mention dust, leaves, hail, and even abuse by animals. High temperatures can also reduce PV power production. Storing massive quantities of electrical energy overnight or for cloudy days to provide utility-scale baseload power on earth is not cost effective (except for a few price-insensitive buyers, such as the military or hospitals). Very few situations can economically justify the massive storage of electrical energy. By placing large PV arrays in space, however, they can be even more environmentally benign and storage is unnecessary, since in GeoSynchronous Orbit (GSO) the sun shines over 99% of the year. GSO provides much more intense sunlight nearly continuously with no clouds, eliminating the storage problem and utilizing those valuable photovoltaic cells 10 times more effectively. Someday commercial companies may even manufacture PV and other components in space - from lunar captured asteroid1. As we will outline, fabricating the PV we need to build SSP is chiefly a matter of increasing production levels for space PV from one hundred kilowatts annual production upwards to many Gigawatts, and tuning those production lines to space-qualified thin film. This transition capability has already been demonstrated for amorphous silicon, the most mature space qualified thin film. 2. BRIEF HISTORY Solar cells have their origins from some of the most important scientific developments of the 20th century, combining the Nobel prize winning work of several of the most important scientists of that century. The German scientist, Max Planck, began the century engrossed in the problem of trying to explain the nature of light emitted by hot bodies, such as the sun. He had to make assumptions about energy being restricted to discrete levels to match theory and observations. This stimulated Albert Einstein, in his `miraculous year of 1905 (Stachel, 1998), to postulate that light was made of small `particles, later called photons, each with a tiny amount of energy that depends on the photon's colour. Blue photons have about twice the energy of red photons. Infrared photons, invisible to the eye have even less energy. Ultraviolet photons, the cause of sunburn and skin cancer, are also invisible but carry even more energy than the blue ones, accounting for the damage they can do.

Einstein's radical suggestion led to the formulation and development of quantum mechanics, culminating in 1926 in Edwin Schrodinger's wave equation. Wilson solved this equation for material in solid form in 1930. This allowed him to explain the difference between metals, good conductors of electricity and insulators; also the properties of semiconductors with their intermediate electrical properties. Electrons, the carriers of electrical charge, are free to move around in metals, allowing electrical currents to flow readily. In insulators, electrons re locked into the bonds holding the atoms of the insulator together. They need a jolt of energy to free them from these bonds, so they can become mobile. The same applies to semiconductors, except a smaller jolt is needed even the red photons in sunlight have enough energy to free an electron in the archetypical semiconductor, silicon. Russel Ohl discovered the first silicon solar cell by accident in 1940. He was surprised to measure a large electrical voltage from what he thought was a pure rod of silicon when he shone a flashlight on it. Closer investigation showed that small concentrations of impurities were giving portions of the silicon properties dubbed `negative (n-type)3. These properties are now known to be due to a surplus of mobile electrons with their negative charge. Other regions had `positive (p-type) properties, now known to be due to a deficiency of electrons, causing an effect similar to a surplus of positive charge (something close to a physical demonstration of the mathematical adage that two negatives make a positive). William Shockley worked out the theory of the devices formed from junctions between `positive and `negative regions (p-n junctions) in 1949 and soon used this theory to design the first practical transistors. The semiconductor revolution of the 1950s followed, which also resulted in the first efficient solar cells in 1954. The first commercial use of the new solar cells was on spacecraft, beginning in 1958. This was the major commercial application until the early 1970s, when oil embargoes of that period stimulated a re-examination of the cells' potential closer to home. From small beginnings, a terrestrial solar cell industry took root at this time and has grown rapidly, particularly over recent years, to US$1 billion per year in sales, by the end of the 20 th century (Perlin, 1999). Increasing international resolve to reduce carbon dioxide emissions as a first step to reigning in the `Greenhouse Effect, combined with decreasing cell costs, sees the industry poised to make increasing impact over the first two decades of the new millennium3. 3. OPERATING PRINCIPLES Fig. 1 is a schematic of a solar cell under illumination. Light entering the cell through the gaps between the top contact metal gives up its energy by temporarily releasing

electrons from the covalent bonds holding the semiconductor together; at least this is what happens for those photons with sufficient energy. The p-n junction within the cell ensures that the now mobile charge carriers of the same polarity all move off in the same direction. If an electrical load, such as the lamp shown in Fig. 1, is connected between the top and rear contacts to the cell, electrons will complete the circuit through this load, constituting an electrical current in it. Energy in the incoming sunlight is thereby converted into electrical energy consumed by this load.

and the commercialisation of new cell technologies Although most of the product over the coming decade will be first generation silicon wafer based, it is thought likely that a second generation thin-film technology will make its mark during this period.

Fig. 2: Evolution of the World annual PV market 2000-2009

4. CELL TECHNOLOGY
Fig. 1: Incoming sunlight is converted to an electrical current flow in a load such as a lamp connected between the cell contacts.

4.1 Silicon Wafer The technology used to make most of the solar cells, fabricated so far, borrows heavily from the microelectronics industry.

The cell operates as a `quantum device, exchanging photons for electrons. Ideally, each photon of sufficient energy striking the cell causes one electron to flow through the load. In practice, this ideal is seldom reached. Some of the incoming photons are reflected from the cell or get absorbed by the metal contacts (where they give up their energy as heat). Some of the electrons excited by the photons relax back to their bound state before reaching the cell contacts and thereby the load. The electrical power consumed by the load is the product of the electrical current supplied by the cell and the voltage across it. Each cell can supply current at a voltage from 0 V to a maximum in the 0.5-1.0 V range, depending on the particular semiconductor used for the cell. Although photovoltaics cells have been used since the 1950s in space craft, the interest in their terrestrial use was heightened by the oil embargoes of the early 1970s. Since then, a steadily growing terrestrial industry has developed which, in the past, has supplied cells mainly for remote area applications where conventional electricity is expensive. However, the industry is now in an explosive period of growth where the subsidised urbanresidential use of photovoltaics is providing the main market. The industry has grown at a compounded rate of 30% per annum over the last five years, corresponding to a quadrupling of annual production over this period (Fig. 2)2. The present healthy state of the industry is stimulating the fabrication of several large new manufacturing facilities

Fig. 3: Growth of a cylindrical silicon crystal.

The silicon source material is extracted from quartz, although sand would also be a suitable material. The silicon is then refined to very high purity and melted. From the melt, a large cylindrical single crystal is drawn (Fig.3), usually of 10-15 cm diameter and 1 m or more in length, weighting several tens of kilograms. The crystal, or `ingot, is then sliced into circular wafers, less than half a millimetre thick, like slicing bread from a loaf. Sometimes this cylindrical ingot is `squared-off before slicing so the wafers have a `quasi-square shape that allows processed cells to be stacked more closely side by side. Most of this technology is identical to that used in the much larger microelectronics industry, benefiting from the corresponding economies of scale. Since good cells can be

Fig. 4: (a) Directional solidification of a large block of multicrystalline silicon from a melt; (b) Sawing of large block into smaller ingots prior to slicing into multicrystalline wafers.

Fig. 5: Structure of a typical commercial cell with textured surface and screen-printed contacts.

made from material of lower quality than that used in microelectronics, additional economies are obtained by using `off-specification silicon and `off-specification silicon wafers from this industry. As the photovoltaics industry matures, it will increasingly use technology optimised for its own requirements. An example is the increasing use of `multicrystalline silicon wafers. The starting ingot is formed simply by solidifying the molten silicon slowly in its container (Fig. 4(a)). This ingot can be massive, weighing several hundreds of kilograms. It is sawn into pieces of a more manageable size (Fig. 4(b)) and then sliced into wafers. Techniques for growing silicon in the form of ribbons from the melt have also been developed. These have the advantage that no slicing is required. 4.2. From wafers to cells Some manufacturers make their own wafers while others buy them from wafer suppliers. In either case, the first step in processing a wafer into a cell is to etch the wafer surface with chemicals to remove damage from the slicing step. The surface of crystalline wafers is then etched again using a chemical that etches at different rates in different directions through the silicon crystal. This leaves features on the surface, with the silicon structure that remains determined by crystal directions that etch very slowly. The square-based pyramids apparent in Fig. 5 that are formed by this process are similar in shape, if not in size, to the great pyramids of Egypt. These pyramids are very effective in reducing reflection from the cell surface. (Light reflected from the side of a pyramid will be reflected downwards, getting a second chance to get coupled in).

The all-important p-n junction is then formed. The impurity required to give p-type properties (usually boron) is introduced during crystal growth, so it is already in the wafer. The n-type impurity (usually phosphorus) is now allowed to seep into the wafer surface by heating the wafer in the presence of a phosphorus source. This gives a thin skin of phosphorus-doped material around the entire wafer. The skin along the wafer edge is removed (that along the rear is rendered inactive during the rear contacting step). Next, the top and bottom contacts are applied using metal particles (usually silver) suspended in a paste with other additives. This paste is `screen-printed onto the cell surface in the desired pattern using a simple process similar to that used to print patterns onto T-shirts. After printing, the paste is dried and heated at high temperature, leaving the metal particles agglomerated together. A very thin layer of insulating material is sometimes added to the top cell surface as an antireflection coating, similar to the coating used on high-quality camera lenses. Such coatings are always used for `multicrystalline wafers, since the pyramidal-texturing approach is not effective for such wafers and this alternative approach is essential to control reflection. All the equipment required for this process is available `off the shelf from the microelectronics industry (the `hybrid or `thick film industry sector). This, combined with the small number of processing steps, has made this sequence almost universally used by solar cell manufacturers. However, the penalty paid for its simplicity and convenience is lower cell performance than is inherently available from the staring wafers. The screen-printed silver pastes are also quite expensive. After fabrication, the cells are soldered together and packaged under a sheet of glass into a weatherproof package known as a module.

Generally, 36 cells are packaged into a module, since this is the required number to generate enough voltage to allow charging of a lead-acid battery. 4.3. Improved technology The previous `screen-printed sequence was developed in the early 1970s and produces cells with performance typical of this era. As shown in Fig. 6, there has been over 50% relative improvement in laboratory silicon cell performance since that time. Only 20% of the cost of producing a standard module is due to cell processing costs. Both these and the remaining 80% of the costs are able to be reduced per unit power output by increasing cell efficiency (since these costs are related to cell and module area). This means that cell processing costs per unit area can double if this results in 20% improvement in cell performance (or triple for 40% improvement) 3. Given that the screen-printing sequence is simple but still reasonably expensive, due to the costs of the required metal pastes, such a trade-off is feasible.

This combines crystalline silicon technology with that of amorphous silicon, discussed below. The HIT cell would

Fig. 7: Buried contact solar cell.

Fig. 8: Heterojunction with intrinsic thin layer (HIT) cell. Fig. 6: Evolution of silicon laboratory cell e$ciency. The dark squares show improvements demonstrated by the author's group.

The most successful commercialisation to data of an improved, higher performance sequence has involved the buried contact cell of Fig. 7. This cell offers 20-30% improvement in output with virtually no increase in cell processing costs3. The overall relative cost advantage of the technology is therefore close to its relative efficiency advantage. The improved performance comes from better quality surface regions that allow much better response to blue light, absorbed close to the surface, and much lower electrical resistance and optical losses due to the improved top contacting scheme. A more recently commercialised approach is the Heterojunction with intrinsic thin layer (HIT) cell of Fig. 7.

be expected to give some of the improvements of the buried contact sequence in the areas mentioned, although not to the same extent. The rear processing of the cell is improved compared to the buried contact sequence and the cell responds to light from both directions, a feature that can be used to advantage in some applications. For the processing of multicrystalline wafers, the use of silicon nitride as an antireflection coating has advantages known for some time. These arise from the presence of hydrogen in this layer, arising from its presence in one of the source gases (SiH4) used in the deposition process. The hydrogen diffuses into the silicon and is effective in reducing detrimental activities at the boundaries between the individual grains in multicrystalline material. The use

of nitride is expected to be more widely adopted in the future for such multicrystalline material, in particular. 5. THIN FILM SOLAR CELLS 5.1. Thin-Film advantages The potential for on-going cost reductions is the key reason for confidence in a significant role for photovoltaics in the future. Rather than the wafer-based technology of the previous section, the future belongs to `thin-Film technology. In his approach (Fig. 9), thin layers of semiconductor material are deposited onto a supporting substrate, or superstrate, such as a large sheet of glass. Typically, less than a micron thickness of semiconductor material is required, 100-1000 times less than the thickness of silicon wafer4.

technologies has its own strengths and weaknesses, the likely outcome is not clear at present3, 4. 5.2. Amorphous silicon alloy cells 5.2.1. Properties Given its success in wafer form, silicon is an obvious choice for development as a thin-"lm cell. Early attempts to make thin-film polycrystalline silicon cells did not meet with much success. However, starting from the mid-1970s, very rapid progress was made with silicon in amorphous form. In amorphous silicon, the atoms are connected to neighbours in much the same way as in the crystalline material but accumulation of small deviations from perfection means that the perfect ordering over large distances is no longer possible. Amorphous material has much lower electronic quality, as a consequence, and originally was not thought suitable for solar cells. However, producing amorphous silicon by decomposing the gas, silane (SiH4), at low temperature, changed this opinion. It was found that hydrogen from the source was incorporated into the cell in large quantities (about 10% by volume), improving the material quality4. Hydrogenated amorphous silicon cells very quickly found use in small consumer products such as solar calculators and digital watches, their main use so far. The problem with outdoor use is that some of the beneficial effect of hydrogen becomes undone under bright sunshine and the cell performance degrades. Initially, there was hope that some simple material-related solution could be found. When this did not happen, the only alternative was to design around it. Cells had to be developed that could work well with material of degraded quality, rather than of the starting quality. 5.2.2. Amorphous cell design Since the amorphous silicon quality is much poorer than crystalline silicon, a different cell design approach is required. The most active part of a p-n junction solar cell is right at the junction between the p- and n-type region of the cell (Fig. 1). This is due to the presence of an electric field at this junction. With amorphous silicon cell design, the aim is to stretch out the extent of this junction region as far as possible so almost all the cell is junction. This is done by having the pand n-type doped regions very thin, with an undoped region between them. The strength of the electric field established in this undoped region is nearly constant and depends on this region's width. The poorer the quality of amorphous silicon, the stronger the field needs to be for the device to work well and hence the thinner the device needs to be. For degraded material, it turns out that the cell needs to be thinner than the thickness required to absorb all the useable

Fig. 9: Thin-Film approach.

Reduced material use with associated reduced costs is a key advantage. Another is that the unit of production, instead of being a relatively small silicon wafer, becomes much larger, for example, as large as a conveniently handled sheet of glass might be. This reduces manufacturing costs. Silicon is one of the few semiconductors inexpensive enough to be used to make solar cells from self-supporting wafers. However, in thin-"lm form, due to the reduced material requirements, virtually any semiconductor can be used. Since semiconductors can be formed not only by elemental atoms such as silicon, but also from compounds and alloys involving multiple elements, there is essentially an infinite number of semiconductors from which to choose. At present, solar cells made from five different thin-Film technologies are either available commercially, or close to being so. Over the coming decade, one of these is expected to establish its superiority and attract investment in major manufacturing facilities that will sustain the downward pressure on cell prices. As each of these thin-"lm

incident sunlight. The way around this is to stack several cells on top of one another so that light not absorbed by an upper one passes through to an underlying cell The best commercial amorphous silicon cells presently use three cells stacked on top of one another, with progressively more germanium in the bottom two5. Each cell is very thin, only 100-200 nm thick. This ensures reasonable stability (only about 15% degradation in output when exposed to bright sunlight). However, the stabilised efficiency is quite poor, only 6-7% for the best commercial modules, according to manufacturers' data sheets. This low efficiency, even with the sophisticated cell design involved, is expected to make it difficult for this technology to be competitive in the long term. However, the low temperatures involved in making these cells mean that they can be deposited onto low-temperature substrates such as plastics. This makes them especially suitable for consumer products. 5.3. Thin-Film, polycrystalline compound semiconductors Many semiconductors made from compounds can absorb light more strongly than the elemental semiconductors, silicon and germanium, for reasons that are well understood but quite subtle7 (silicon and germanium are `indirect rather than `direct bandgap materials). This means compound semiconductor cells can be thin but still operate efficiently. Most compound semiconductors, when formed in polycrystalline form, have poor electronic properties due to highly deleterious activity at grain boundaries between individual crystalline grains in the material. A small number maintain good performance in polycrystalline form for reasons that are not usually well understood. These are the candidates for thin-"lm polycrystalline compound semiconductor solar cells. One such semiconductor is the compound cadmium telluride (CdTe). Technically, it is an ideal material, giving properties suitable for making reasonable solar cells even with relatively crude material deposition approaches (such as electrodeposition, chemical spraying, and so on). The junction in these cells is again between p and n-type material, but for the latter, a different compound semiconductor, cadmium sulphide, gives best results. CdTe cells have been used mainly in pocket calculators to date, but large area, moderate performance modules have also been demonstrated7. The main concern with this technology is the toxicity of the materials involved, even though very small amounts are used in the modules. At the very least, this would mean that modules would have to be carefully disposed of or, preferably, recycled after their useful life was finished. However, there may be some problems in gaining market acceptance in what is likely to be mainly a `green market over coming years.

There are also only limited known resources of tellurium (Zweibel and Green, 2000). If all identified reserves were converted into cells of the present designs overnight, they could generate 10% of the world's present electricity use (a steadily decreasing percentage indefinitely, if recycled at end of life). An even more promising technology at the moment, in the author's opinion, is one based on the ternary compound, copper indium diselenide (CuInSe2). As if three elements were not enough, this compound is often alloyed with copper gallium diselenide (CuGaSe2) and copper indium disulphide (CuInS2), giving material with up to five elements involved6. The n type layer in these devices consists of a layer of cadmium sulphide, as in the previous cadmium telluride cells. An alternative for this layer is being sought, to eliminate the toxic cadmium. Small area laboratory cells have demonstrated efficiency close to 19%, despite the fine-grained polycrystalline material used6. Modules of this material are now commercially available in small volumes with efficiency up to 12% demonstrated in pilot production. This is not far behind what is achieved with standard crystalline silicon wafer modules. Apart from the use of cadmium and even more limited known resources of indium than tellurium, an often quoted limitation of this technology is `manufacturability. This is often interpreted as meaning it is difficult to diagnose problems in production with this material, since the difference between good and bad material is not sufficiently well understood to allow differentiation and control during the various manufacturing steps. 5.4. Thin-Film polycrystalline silicon cells As previously mentioned, silicon is a weak absorber of sunlight compared to some compound semiconductors and even to hydrogenated amorphous silicon. Early attempts to develop thin-"lm solar cells based on the polycrystalline silicon did not give encouraging results since the silicon layers had to be quite thick to absorb most of the available light. However, in early 1980s, understanding of how effectively a semiconductor can trap weakly absorbed light into its volume greatly increased8. Due to the optical properties of semiconductors, particularly their high refractive index, cells can trap light very effectively if the light direction is randomised, such as by striking a rough surface, once it is inside the cell. Optically a cell can appear about 50 times thicker than its actual thickness if this occurs. Such `light trapping removes the weak absorption disadvantage of silicon.

Work on polycrystalline thin-Film solar cells is proceeding in two areas. A variety of `high temperature approaches such as suggested by Fig. 10 are being explored. There generally involve either high-temperature deposition of silicon onto a substrate or melting the silicon after

technology. One approach is to deposit the silicon in amorphous form and then crystallise it by heating for prolonged periods at intermediate temperatures. This `solid-phase crystallisation approach has produced cells of quite reasonable performance9. Another approach has involved changing the amorphous silicon deposition conditions, to produce a nano crystalline phase of silicon. The potential of this approach was highlighted by early results with the `micromorph solar cell9. More recently, cell efficiency above 10% has been confirmed with this approach. There are plans to use such cells as the lower cell in a tandem configuration with an amorphous silicon upper cell, with commercial product targeted for 2002. Also targeted for commercialisation in the same timeframe is polycrystalline silicon on glass product shown in Fig. 11, based on an amorphous silicon precursor. 6. CONCLUSION Crystalline or polycrystalline silicon cells are expected to satisfy most of the rapidly growing demand for solar photovoltaic product over the coming decade. Cells are expected to become thinner and higher performing, with possibly a shift in preferred wafer type from boron- to phosphorus-doped. Silicon directly grown in the form of self-supporting, multicrystalline ribbons is expected to also appear in larger volume on the market. It appears likely that, by the end of the decade, polycrystalline silicon thinfilm product deposited directly onto glass or another supporting substrate may also have market impact. As we enter the new millennium, photovoltaics are poised to make a more significant impact upon energy use. Although still dominating the marketplace, first generation a technology based on silicon wafers is starting to be challenged by `second generation thin-film technology. This has the advantage of much lower material costs and of being better suited to high-volume manufacture. There is also scope for a third generation of technology, based on principles not yet fully developed, offering prospects for significantly enhanced efficiency at some stage further into the future. Accompanying the rapidly growing demand for photovoltaics and such on-going improvements in technology, photovoltaic costs have been steadily decreasing and are expected to do so well into the future. The application driving market growth at the present is in urban residential rooftop systems. This is expected to continue to be the most important commercial application over the coming decade, although dependent on subsidies for its viability. The required level of subsidy is expected to decreases over the coming decade, with this application fully economic by the end of the decade. Policies that support this market pull mechanism while encouraging the development and commercialisation of improved photovoltaic technology are believed to be the most appropriate.

Fig. 10: One approach for high-temperature preparation of silicon thin-film solar cells.

deposition, to obtain large grain size in the "nal "lm. Although preparation details are sketchy, the thin-"lm silicon product available from the US company, Astropower, is the most developed representative of this class of approach. In this case, the silicon is deposited onto an expansion-matched ceramic substrate. The final material consists of millimetre sized grains and is similar in appearance to multicrystalline silicon wafers. Small area cell performance in the 16-17% range has been demonstrated, similar to that from such cells on moderatequality multicrystalline silicon. The performance of large arrays of such cells has also been similar.

Fig. 11: Prototype thin-"lm polycrystalline silicon-on-glass module (photograph courtesy of Paci"c Solar Pty. Ltd., Sydney).

The other type of approach is a `low-temperature approach, generally based on amorphous silicon

7. REFERENCES 5. 1. Herig, C., Assessing Rooftop Solar-Electric Distributed Energy Resources for the California Local Government Commission, October, 2000 see http://www.eere.energy.gov/solar/to_you.html#environ mental_impact European Photovoltaic Industry Association,Global Maarket Outlookfor PhotovoltaicsUntill 2014, May,1020 update. M. A. Green,Photovoltaics: technology overview, Energy Policy, Vol. 28,pp 989-998, 2000. Dominique S., Roland E., Silicon feedstock for the multi-crystalline photovoltaic industry Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells,Vol.72, pp 2740, 2002 M. A. Green, Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Cells, Adv. Material, Vol. 13, pp 12-13, July 4,2001. R. M. Swanson, A Vision for Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaics, Progress in Photovoltaic: Research and Applications, Vol. 14,pp 443453,2006. A. G. Aberle,Fabrication and characterisation of crystalline silicon thin-film materials for solar cells, Thin Solid Films, Vol. 512 ,pp 26 34,2006. M. A. Green, Recent Developments in Photovoltaics, Solar Energy, Vol. 76,pp 38, 2004. M. A. Green,Crystalline and thin-film silicon solar cells: state of the art and future potential, Solar Energy,Vol. 74,pp 181192,2003.

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