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ARTICLE A REVISIT ON SOLAR CELL: GENERATION OF ELECTRICITY BY HARVESTING SUNLIGHT D. GHOSH1,3, K. BISWAS1,3, S. BALAJI1,3, PARTHA PRATIM DAS,2,3 P. SUJATHA DEVI2,3 AND K. ANNAPURNA1,3 In the present day knowledge based society, Science transforms the Culture. This can be witnessed through the contemporary rationalized society that aroused with the advancement of science. Such revolutionised change leading to very fast modern-day walks of life can essentially be credited to the progression in light based technologies. However, in order to meet the continuously mounting demand for energy in this developed world, one has to look for the renewable energy resources and among all such resources most abundant one is the sunlight. In this context, an attempt has been made here to report a brief review on the development of solar cell, the simplest device that converts sunlight to electricity. Further, this article also presents the contributions of CSIR-CGCRI in this field. Introduction manufacturing industries, retail market, geology, atmospheric physics and optical communications, to name part from being one of the indispensible a few. The development of optical fibres enabled faster component of nature for existence of life on earth, and easier communications leading to instantaneous data the light, has widely been explored by mankind A transfer within a fraction of second through internet to meet with his basic needs in every stages of connections across the world, thereby connecting people development. Light based technologies began to develop irrespective of their geographical locations. Thus in the with the invention of incandescent bulb to meet with the present era, light based technologies have become vital for requirement of vision during night. This then went through almost all human activities. And it is due to the immense several stages of modification over centuries to ultimately societal benefits of these technologies that Nobel prizes evolve as the energy efficient compact fluorescent lamps have been awarded several times to encourage researchers (CFLs), high intensity discharge lamps and solid state in this sector. lighting devices like Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) and Organic LEDs (OLED) that serve to lit away the darkness However, as we all know, to every pro there is a con. in the present era. In addition to lightning applications, In order to meet with the energy needs of these developing the discovery of lasers in 1960s brought about a revolution technologies, today mankind is exposed to one of the in the world of technology due to its immense applications greatest threat of 21st century – the energy crisis. But here in various sectors which include medical science, also, the ray of hope to overcome such crisis is the sunlight, which on the other hand is the most abundant renewable 1 Glass Division, CSIR-Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute, energy source, and the most common device for the purpose Kolkata - 700 032, India. is – solar cell. When sunlight of suitable energy is incident 2Sensor and Actuator Division, CSIR-Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute, Kolkata - 700 032, India. on a solar cell which is basically a p-n junction, due to 3CSIR-Network of Institutes for Solar Energy. photovoltaic effect an electron–hole pair is produced. The e-mail : [email protected] ; [email protected] presence of electric field across the junction of this device VOL. 81, NOS. 11–12 337 TABLE I: Historical developments in solar cell technology from 1839 to 2007 [1] Year Achievements/Milestones 1839 Discovery of photovoltaic effect by Edmond Becquerel in electrolytic cell made up of two metal electrodes upon exposure of sunlight 1873 Demonstration of photoconductivity of selenium by Wilough by Smith 1876 William Grylls Adams and Richard Evans Day discovered that illuminating a junction between selenium and platinum generates a photovoltaic effect. 1883 Development of first solar cells made from selenium (Se) Fig. 1. Working principle of a typical p-n junction solar cell. wafers 1905 Publication of a legendary paper on “photoelectric effect” by causes the electron-hole pair to drift apart to produce Albert Einstein (Nobel Prize in the year 1921). electricity provided recombination process is avoided. Fig.1 1932 Demonstration of photovoltaic effect in CdS by Audobert and pictorially represents the working principle of a typical p- Stora n junction solar cell. Efforts to convert sunlight to electricity 1954 Realization of photovoltaic technology by Bell Telephone using photovoltaic cells dates back to centuries. But the Laboratories with the development of Si-PV cell capable of use of sunlight to generate fire, lighting for religious converting solar energy into electricity suitable for running purposes, burning wooden ships of enemies in the war field, electrical equipment for daily usage. Production of silicon solar cell with 4 % efficiency. etc. was seen from as early as the 7th century B.C [1]. However, the photovoltaic effect was first experimentally 1958 Ted Mandelkorn of U.S. Signal Corps Laboratories produces n-on-p silicon PV cell by diffusing P-type layer on n-type observed in 1839 by a French scientist Edmond Becquerel layer. who demonstrated an increment in electricity upon exposure 1958 First PV-powered satellite, Vanguard I, was launched by to sunlight when two metal electrodes were immersed in United States Naval Research Laboratory. an electrically conducting solution. Later in 1876, Adams 1963 Production of practically viable silicon photovoltaic module and Day discovered photocurrent generation from selenium by Sharp Corporation (Se) under exposure to sunlight. It was in 1905, Albert 1963 Installation of 242 watt PV array on a lighthouse by Japan Einstein reported photoelectric effect along with his famous which was world’s largest array at that time. theory of relativity and subsequently he was bestowed with 1966 Launching of first Orbiting Astronomical Observatory of 1 Nobel Prize in the year 1921. Photovoltaic effect in CdS kilowatt PV array by NASA was discovered in 1932 by Audobert and Stora. After two 1976 Development of first amorphous silicon PV cell by D. Carlson decades, in the year 1954 revolutionary progress in and C Wronski photovoltaic cell took place at Bell labs, USA with the 1981 First solar-powered aircraft, the “Solar Challenger” built by development of silicon photovoltaic which is capable of Paul MacCready, flied from France to England across the converting sunlight into electric power with an efficiency English Channel. of 4% having potential to actually run electrical equipment. 1982 First solar powered car “the Quiet Achiever” developed by Successively with further improvements, 11% efficiency for Hans Tholstrup Si-photovoltaic was achieved at the same Lab. Initially it 1985 Record breaking 20% efficiency for silicon solar cells under was explored for space research applications but continuous one sun conditions by the University of South Wales efforts are being made to use it for domestic purpose also. 1986 The first commercial thin film power module released by Although Photovoltaic devices are simple in design ARCO Solar requiring very little maintenance along with their biggest 1994 Development of gallium indium phosphate and gallium advantage of easy construction as stand-alone systems to arsenide solar cells which exceeded 30 % conversion give outputs from microwatts to megawatts, major efficiency. bottlenecks for this technology to take-off to replace fossil 1999 Development of tandem solar cell photovoltaic by Spectrolab and National renewable Energy. Implementation of Solar fuel energy are higher cost per unit of electric energy and concentrator systems mounted on tracking systems. limited conversion efficiency. Table 1 lists historical 2007 Research group at university of Delaware led by Allen Barnett advancements of photovoltaic technology in chronological achieved a record breaking 42.8% efficiency under standard order1. terrestrial conditions 338 SCIENCE AND CULTURE, NOVEMBER-DECEMBER, 2015 The developmental stages of solar cell can be photovoltaics and also highlight a part of such work that classified into three generations. The first generation mainly is presently being carried out at CSIR-CGCRI under the includes the solar cells prepared from thick wafers of single TAPSUN programme. crystalline semiconductors, mainly silicon (Si) and germanium (Ge). Especially, silicon wafers are most Organic Solar Cell commonly used and are more reliable and efficient due In this type of solar cells, low cost semiconducting their chemical structure. Hence till now most widely used polymers have been widely explored since the last three solar cells are based on silicon only which exhibit an decades. The low weight, semi-transparent polymer material efficiency of 20-24%. However growing large crystals of attracted the researchers mainly for its chemical flexibility pure silicon is difficult as well as expensive. Therefore the towards modification which facilitated large scale production cost of this type of cells is exorbitantly high production at a much cheaper cost. The 1st generation and ultimately resulting in a very high cost per unit of organic solar cells consisted of a single layer of polymer energy. Another issue with monocrystalline silicon cells is material sandwiched between two metal electrodes of that their efficiency degrades with increase in cell different work function. The polymers were mainly hole o temperature by about 25 C. To tackle these shortcomings, (h) conductors (p-type) with a band gap of nearly 2 eV. monocrystalline silicon wafers have been replaced with The difference in the work function of two metals brings multi-crystalline silicon for the active material of solar cells. about an asymmetry of e and h injection into the molecular This resulted in a reduction of manufacturing cost but at * and orbital along with the formation of schottky barrier the expense of reduction in efficiency to about 13-14%. between the p-type organic material and the metal with With an aim to bring down the production cost of solar the lower work function.