Clean Electricity from Photovoltaics

CuInS2 films deposited by aerosol-assisted chemical vapor deposition using ternary single-source precursors

“…7 CuInS 2 is a wide band gap chalcopyrite, and it is a promising material for thin film solar cells because of its near optimum direct band gap of 1.5 eV, and its possible use as a top cell in a tandem structure with CIGS. 8 Although the best thin film solar cell efficiency reported was set by a CIGS heterojunction cell (18.8 percent) made at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), CuInS 2 solar cells are theoretically expected to show efficiencies superior to those of CIGS cells. 9 However, total area efficiency of only 11.4 percent has been achieved thus far for CuInS 2 cells.…”

“…10 In order to realize high performance CIGS and CuInS 2 solar cells, it is well understood that precise control of composition during film growth is critical because of the large number of possible intrinsic defects and their role in the dopant compensation, junction formation and carrier recombination. 8 In addition, a Cu-rich stage during the film growth is always necessary to achieve a large, columnar grain structure because the quasi-liquid Cu-S (or Se) binary phase segregated at the surface is believed to enhance the mobility of Cu and S (or Se) atoms during film growth.…”

Radiation imaging detectors made by wafer post-processing of CMOS chips

“…The material is also used for masking; for example in the deep wet etching of glass [88]. In the field of photovoltaics a-Si:H is widely employed in thin film solar cells [89]. Active devices can also be fabricated in a-Si:H. Thin film transistors have been reported [5].…”

Solar cells on CMOS chips as energy harvesters : integration and CMOS compatibility

“…With a history of more than 50 years, there are various solar cell technologies [21]. Most have an outdoor photovoltaic (PV) efficiency more than 10% [22] and some solar cells have a good performance (more than 5%) even under weak light illumination such as indoor light [23,24].…”

“…The basic principle of the solar cells is fully explored in many books [21,[96][97][98][99], and here only a concise and qualitative description is given. Fig.…”