The United States startup develops a new method of manufacturing silicon phot

The United States startup develops a new method of manufacturing silicon photAn American start-up combined crystallization of silicon and manufacturing of solar cells in a single technological process, which excluded very energy-intensive parts of the production chain, said Compulenta.ru portal with reference to the Technology Review. In addition, using a new method, the company has set up a new record of solar panels thinness, reducing the thickness of the silicon layer up to 5 micrometers.

In recent years, progress in the production of cheap solar cells has dramatically accelerated: all the observers agree that we are on the verge of a revolution in this field. But who will be the first? Recently a new approach to traditional and it would seem widely spread silicon solar cells has become known: only 10% of 200 mcm of silicon is used on the photocell, and the exclusion of the rest of 180 mcm from the production cycle seriously affects the value of the final product, because now a half of its price is single-crystal silicon.

But there are those who went further from the idea of making photocells 20 mcm thick. Ampulse, an American start-up, has been thinking about why crystalline silicon at large is so expensive. Today, it is produced according to the following scheme:

The Ampulse Company has undertaken to change the very production chain throwing out unnecessary steps with an entirely new way of producing silicon photocells.

For generating pure silicon, instead of heating (up to 1500 ? C) gaseous SiHCL3 or SiH4, and obtained silicon sub products followed by sawing the pieces to the needed size (when about half of the work piece is wasted on the chips), the authors suggested to directly deposit silicon from the above-mentioned gases by chemical vapor deposition of silicon (HWC-VD, Hot Wire Chemical Vapor Deposition) directly on a thin metal photocell padding. The red-hot tungsten filament, similar to a conventional filament lamp heats the gaseous SiHCL3 (or SiH4) in a sealed chamber of up to 700 ? C, after which the gas decomposes, leaving on a thin metal film at the bottom of the chamber a silicon layer from 5 to 10 mcm (!), which is 2-4 times less than the nearest competitor.

Before HWC-VD method was used to create photocells based on amorphous silicon, but the efficiency of such cells is much lower than of those based on crystalline silicon. For the correct formation of deposited silicon crystals Ampulse uses innovative padding- a rolled textured along two axes light alloy layer, where the ordered and epitaxial crystal growth from the deposited substance passes.

Although it is the batteries with 20 mcm layer that are the most effective, Ampulse calculations showed that the thickness reduction to 10 mcm causes a drop in efficiency only at 10-15% and up to 5 mcm - at only 30%. So, at 5-micrometer layer of silicon photocell efficiency is 12%, and at 10 mm - 18.5% (data, of course, laboratory). The cost is falling to a much greater degree, making work with thinner layers cost-effective.

As a result Ampulse will face the toughest competition: today solar energy is a real battlefield for a variety of competing technologies. But this company has a major advantage: it declares the cost of solar cells produced at less than $ 500 per kilowatt of capacity (at an efficiency of 18%). This is significantly less than that of gallium arsenide cells and organic solar cells.





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