Development of the Spherical Silicon Solar Cell

Spherical crystallization of Si during free fall in drop-tubes

“…This has brought a great deal of attention to the drop-tube processing method for manufacturing spherical crystals with a diameter of $1 mm [1]. However, the severe polycrystallinity of as-dropped samples, attributed to the large undercooling for crystal nucleation, has been an obstacle to the use of this processing.…”

44.4L: Late‐News Paper: Large Area Display Backplane Using Embedded Single‐Crystal Silicon Particles

“…Now consider technology used to make a type of photo-voltaic solar panel, where approximately spherical particles of singlecrystal Si have been manufactured in diameters approaching 2 mm [1,2]. These spheres have higher material quality than either amorphous-, nano-, or poly-crystalline Si [3,4].…”

“…From a device standpoint, the mobility of any type of amorphous or poly-crystalline thin-film transistor (including non-Si and organic devices) is much smaller than single-crystal Si transistors. Electron mobility in amorphous Si is ~1 cm 2 /Vs compared to ~100 cm 2 /Vs for poly-Si, and ~1500 cm 2 /Vs for high-quality single-crystal Si. It is therefore advantageous to use single-crystal Si in place of amorphous Si in such devices.…”

Microstructures and Optical Properties of Silicon Spheres for Solar Cells

“…3,4,[6][7][8][9][10][11][12] Flexible and light weight spherical Si solar cells are also anticipated, and will be valuable in situations such as responding to emergency disasters. The conversion ef ciencies of spherical Si solar cells can be increased by producing high-quality Si spheres, 3,4,[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] forming textured Si surface structures, 16) deactivating defects by passivation, 17) optimizing the concentrator module and re ector cup 18,19) and preparing anti-re ection (AR) lms on the spherical Si solar cells. 12,[20][21][22] Si spheres have typically been grown by a dropping method.…”