Questions tagged [solar-cells]
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Doubt about the working principle of a silicon solar cell
I'm studying crystalline solar cell and their working principle, but I still don't completely understand the process.
First of all, I understand that we dope a pure crystalline silicon with boron and ...
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Solar panels that also work at night?
This was first proposed in a scientific study from 2019. Essentially, the idea is that the solar cell generates power from the heat it radiates at night. That study claimed a theoretical maximum ...
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"Single-shot" Heat engine efficiency limits
The sun is 5778K and Earth is ~290K. Using the sun as the hot reservoir and earth as a cold reservoir we get 95% Carnot efficiency. However, the solar power efficiency limit is only 86%, see: http://...
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Lab Construction of LED
If given a semiconductor with known bandgap, how might someone construct an experimental LED within a lab? It seems common to prepare solar cells using FTO glass plates with a paste of semiconductor ...
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What does it mean if the resistance of a semiconductor increases due to light?
I have synthesized an $n$-type semiconductor material $\text{ZnO}$. Under light illumination, its resistance keeps increasing. What are the reasons for this?
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Do Solar Cells Regenerate After Exposure to Ionising Radiation?
In the past, plenty of research has been done on the effects of ionising radiation on solar cells. This is due to the importance of high efficiency solar cells for electric spacecraft propulsion. Such ...
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Shockley-Queisser limit calculations
I am working through the paper, Detailed Balance Limit of Efficiency of p-n Junction Solar Cells by Shockley & Queisser, for my own research with perovskite solar cells.
I am able to follow their ...
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The tilting of solar cells and their efficiency
This is a thought experiment I am considering. It concerns putting solar panels on a flat roof. The question is whether one should tilt them. Whilst there are more mundane reasons for tilting them (eg ...
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Why Mobility Of Thin Film Changes With Deposition Temperature
A metal oxide thin film is a p-type semiconductor (say copper oxide Cu2O) due to metal vacancies in the film. This thin film can be deposited using some form of vacuum/vapor deposition.
I know that ...
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Increasing potential beyond saturation current in photoelectric effect
After reading several posts and sources online, I think I finally understand the saturation current: at the saturation current, all of the electrons being emitted due to the incident light are being ...
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Why are spin coated polymer solar cells more efficient?
Reading papers on polymer solar cells (PSC from now on), it is seen that many different coating techniques are used in order to coat polymer films on substrates. It is also seen that spin coated ...
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Silver vs Aluminum electrodes in silicon solar cells?
In a typical high efficiency solar cell, silver is used as a front contact and aluminum as the rear contact. Despite the lower resistivity of silver, the usage of aluminum as a front contact would ...
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Why did PV cell manufacturing move away from having all of the contacts in the lower end of a PV cell?
In modern day PV cells you usually have a silver-based grid on the upper end of the cell where it's exposed to the sun creating the optimization game of how thin/thick you can make your busbars and ...
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Infrared solar pannels and thermodynamics
I was wondering if we could use background radiation to produce electricity (even a tiny amount). However, I've read somewhere that solar panels absorbing infrared (and lower frequencies photons) ...
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On a PV cell, why do electrons travel through the copper rather than through the PN junction?
thank you all for reading me!
I am currently reviewing the structure and working principles of a PV cell. I think I understand the following steps about how the PN junction is formed and what happens ...
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Will the heat generated from solar panel electricity eventually generate wind energy?
I'm curious about limits for extracting solar energy, but I never studied this stuff so I'm going to speculate a lot.
My first question deals with the things like wind energy. I assume this energy is ...
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Does a UV flashlight work to excite a solar panel to generate current in the same way natural sunlight would?
So I wanted to show some young kids solar panels. In the sunlight they work great, but obviously inside they won't work.
I wanted to ask if I bought an UV flashlight from amazon like here would this ...
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Bimolecular recombination: How can it be non-radiative for $e$-$p$ pair?
I have understood that the bimolecular recombination of electrons and holes can be radiative when they meet each other,
However, I also heard that there are defect sites that can accept electrons and ...
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Light-driven Carnot engine
Based on the definition of the Carnot engine, it is reversible, runs in a cycle, and is frictionless, which would result in the conclusion that the Carnot engine is the most efficient engine. The ...
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Thermodynamic efficiency limit of solar cells instead of Shockley–Queisser limit
I am considering the efficiency limit of solar cells, at first, it occurs to me that there should be a thermodynamic efficiency limit and try to reduce the entropy production as much as possible, just ...
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Solar panel voltage reducing by adding cellophane
For a physics report, I am aiming to answer the question How does the power output of a solar cell vary with the thickness of cling wrap laid over it?
I got a negative relationship between voltage and ...
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How are the layers of a solar cell stacked together?
Do manufacturers of solar cell use an adhesive to bind the n-type and p-type layers of a solar cell?? Or do they simply rely on the smoothness of the surfaces of the individual layers to contact each ...
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Why shift current doesnt depend on applied voltage?
I am currently reading about the Bulk photovoltaic effect in Weyl semi-metal. Shift current is one of the major sources of current in the Bulk Photovoltaic effect. They originate in non-...
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Intrinsic carrier concentration and bandgap
My understanding is that the intrinsic carrier concentration of a wide bandgap material tends to be lower than that of a narrow bandgap material.
$$ n_i = \left(N_cN_v\right)^{1/2}e^{\left(\frac{-E_g}...
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Dependence of solar energy absorbed over a year on orientation of solar panel
I am trying to find how total solar energy incident, over a year, depends on the orientation of a tilted solar panel. The final goal is to find the optimum direction in which the panel should be ...
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Solar cell: Surprising change in EL for varying PEDOT:PSS-thicknesses
I am currently working on improving a solar cell, which is partly transparent and therefore utilizes two transparent electrodes (TCO on top and PEDOT:PSS on the bottom). As PEDOT:PSS alone is not ...
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Open circuit voltage of solar panel in relation to temperature
How do we calculate the effect of temperature on the open circuit voltage of a solar panel?
The source: https://www.pveducation.org/pvcdrom/solar-cell-operation/effect-of-temperature offers an answer,...
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Light Intensity vs Power for a Small Incandescent Lamp
Today I did a quick experiment where I measured the light intensity of a small incandescent bulb for a range of voltages (0 to 31V). I also measured the current. I expected to see the light ...
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Attempting to calculate the mobility from SCLC measurement (space charge limited current)
I performed an SCLC measurement on a p-type material (hole transport layer) for a solar cell. Referring to the wikipedia page:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_charge
The relationship between $J$ ...
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Further doping p-type material. Why doesn't this increase the hole mobility. etc?
I did a project in which I made perovksite nanocrystal solar cells. The hole transport material was doped with another p-type material and performance was compared. It turns out that this didn't ...
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Inverse Square Law's effect on solar panels
Hey I'm doing an experiment for school and I'm trying to investigate how the distance of a light source affects the output of a solar panel and I've faced a few problems since i'm trying to include ...
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Is it possible to model a solar thermal concentrator using Zernike polynomials?
This question might seem a bit off-topic, but I guess there are a lot of people here that know about optics, telescopes, etc.
I would like to simulate solar thermal systems that focus solar ...
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How is a Potential Difference Created in Photo Voltaic Cells?
In order for photo cells to produce current, N and P type material are joined to create a depletion zone. I understand how incoming photons can dislodge electrons from their atoms in the N type ...
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Can a single photovoltaic semiconductor junction ever produce a voltage much above it's own band gap?
A simple model for a photovoltaic cell is a current source with a series resistor, and a few more items. The current from the current source is some fairly constant proportionality constant of the ...
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Power of solar panel and dc generator
I have made a solar stirling engine and I need to measure its power and compare it to the output power of a solar panel. I need to see which one is more efficient. I am using the same area in both ...
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How much energy does a PV cell need to work?
How much energy does a $1m^2$ photovolatic/solar cell need to work? Can it work using a bunch of Laser lights?
Edit: Ok so this PV cell is $1m^2$ is dimesions. The N-type has silicon doped with ...
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What happens to solar cells in water (or in anything other than air)?
Suppose there is a solar cell with light of a single wavelength shining on it (through air) and that this wavelength is optimal for the cell, meaning that it is converted to electricity with the ...
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What is DX technology and what are the effects on digital cameras?
I am photographing in a high power voltage field in Industry producing aluminium, called DX technology.
How do I know if my digital camera will not be affected? At 350kA current my film cameras were ...
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Is it possible to relate the usage of types silicon in a solar cell to a phase diagram of doped Silicon? (Si-P, Si-B)
With reading this post (Why do we need pure silicon for a solar cell to be efficient?) I am seeing these new concepts I never thought were in a solar cell. With bare minimum google searches I thought ...
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What is the major challenge in building a hybrid solar panel that uses both PE and PV effects?
In the current times, I see that most solar panels work fully on 'photo voltaic' effect (visible light -> semiconductor). The manufacturers even ensure to block UV as much as possible to increase ...
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Mott dengerate semiconductor as absorber in solar cell
Does dengerate semiconductor—which met the Mott criterion—serve any purpose as an absorber for the photovoltaic effect in solar cell applications?
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Barrier layer photovoltaic effect (BLPVE) and Bulk photovoltaic effect (BPVE)
Ferroelectric materials typically exhibit the bulk photovoltaic effect (BPVE). My question is that if a material taken as an absorber in a device which works on barrier layer photovoltaic effect (...
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Underdamped and overdamped molecular vibrations
I am reading about the interactions between excitons and phonons in this article, and I came across the following equation for the underdamped component of the spectral density of the vibrational bath:...
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Exciton transport in a molecular chain
I'm currently reading this article about exciton transport across a chain of tightly bonded molecules each coupled to an intramolecular vibration of frequency $\omega_0$. It says that the Hamiltonian ...
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Why/If Cadmium Compounds are Used In Electronics Related to Light
So I've noticed that cadmium compounds show up quite a bit in electronics related to light. For example, cadmium telluride is apparently the most used material in solar panels aside from silicon. In ...
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Is it possible to boost solar panel output using wavelength shifting materials?
Solar panels only produce energy from a small section of the total wavelength spectrum of light. I believe some panels have a mirrored back to pass light through the solar panel a second time. Much of ...
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Convert $\rm Lux$ to $\rm W/m^2$
I use four LED matrix (UV, green, red, blue) to irradiate a solar panel with an area of S at a distance. The matrix is located at a distance l from the solar panel. I want to plot the volt-ampere ...
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Why does the voltage of a solar panel change as the tilt angle changes?
I performed an experiment where I linked a solar panel to a constant resistance, and took readings of the voltage and current every 10 minutes between 11:00 and 18:00. I performed this for 0, π/6, ...
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Why are polycrystalline solar cells shinier than monocrystalline solar cells?
Being shiny reduces the efficiency of the solar cells. Additional to the grain boundaries that polycrystalline solar cells have that gives resistance to the current flowing in them, they are shinier ...
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Does open-circuit voltage decrease when resistance increases in a solar cell?
In a solar cell, if resistance were to somehow increase (maybe heating up the panel), would that contribute in any meaningful way in decreasing the open-circuit voltage?
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