Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells

Download or read book Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells written by W.R. Fahrner and published by Trans Tech Publications Ltd. This book was released on 2006-08-15 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world of today must face up to two contradictory energy problems: on the one hand, there is the sharply growing consumer demand in countries such as China and India. On the other hand, natural resources are dwindling. Moreover, many of those countries which still possess substantial gas and oil supplies are politically unstable. As a result, renewable natural energy sources have received great attention. Among these, solar-cell technology is one of the most promising candidates. However, there still remains the problem of the manufacturing costs of such cells. Many attempts have been made to reduce the production costs of “conventional” solar cells (manufactured from monocrystalline silicon using diffusion methods) by instead using cheaper grades of silicon, and simpler pn-junction fabrication. That is the ‘hero’ of this book; the heterojunction solar cell.