Bulk solar cells

The chemical and electronic properties of elements at the interfaces between very thin films and bulk substrates are important in several technological areas, particularly microelectronics, sensors, catalysis, metal protection, and solar cells. To study conditions at an interface, depth profiling by ion bombardment is inadvisable, because both composition and chemical state can be altered by interaction with energetic positive ions. The normal procedure is, therefore, to start with a clean or other well-characterized substrate and deposit the thin film on to it slowly at a chosen temperature while XPS is used to monitor the composition and chemical state by recording selected characteristic spectra. The procedure continues until no further spectral changes occur, as a function of film thickness, of time elapsed since deposition, or of changes in substrate temperature. 

In two-component charge transfer systems, such as in the bulk-heterojuncdon solar cells presented here, deviations of the V,K. from the results of pristine single layer or bilayer devices are expected for two reasons first, some pan of the available difference in electrochemical energy is used internally by the charge transfer to a lower energetic position on the electron acceptor second, the relative posi-... 

Djellal L, BougueUa A, Kadi-Hanifi M, Trari M (2008) Bulk p-CulnSe2 photoelectrochemical solar cells. Sol Energy Mater Sol Cells 92 594-600... 

By using a multichamber system [129], exchange of residual gases between successive depositions will be strongly decreased, and very sharp interfaces can be made. Furthermore, the use of a load-lock system ensures high quality of the background vacuum, and thus low levels of contaminants in the bulk layers. Multichamber reactor systems have been used for the fabrication of solar cells, and considerable improvements in energy conversion efficiency have been achieved [130, 131]. 

Water is involved in most of the photodecomposition reactions. Hence, nonaqueous electrolytes such as methanol, ethanol, N,N-d i methyl forma mide, acetonitrile, propylene carbonate, ethylene glycol, tetrahydrofuran, nitromethane, benzonitrile, and molten salts such as A1C13-butyl pyridium chloride are chosen. The efficiency of early cells prepared with nonaqueous solvents such as methanol and acetonitrile were low because of the high resistivity of the electrolyte, limited solubility of the redox species, and poor bulk and surface properties of the semiconductor. Recently, reasonably efficient and fairly stable cells have been prepared with nonaqueous electrolytes with a proper design of the electrolyte redox couple and by careful control of the material and surface properties [7], Results with single-crystal semiconductor electrodes can be obtained from table 2 in Ref. 15. Unfortunately, the efficiencies and stabilities achieved cannot justify the use of singlecrystal materials. Table 2 in Ref. 15 summarizes the results of liquid junction solar cells prepared with polycrystalline and thin-film semiconductors [15]. As can be seen the efficiencies are fair. Thin films provide several advantages over bulk materials. Despite these possibilities, the actual efficiencies of solid-state polycrystalline thin-film PV solar cells exceed those obtained with electrochemical PV cells [22,23]. 

The different types of quinones active in photosynthesis are being used as electron acceptors in solar cells. The compounds such as Fd and NADP could also be used as electron/proton acceptors in the photoelectrochemical cells. Several researchers have attempted the same approach with a combination of two or more solid-state junctions or semiconductor-electrolyte junctions using bulk materials and powders. Here, the semiconductors can be chosen to carry out either oxygen- or hydrogen-evolving photocatalysis based on the semiconductor electronic band structure. 

Because of its indirect bandgap, bulk crystalline silicon shows only a very weak PL signal at 1100 nm, as shown for RT and 77 K in Fig. 7.9. Therefore optoelectronic applications of bulk silicon are so far limited to devices that convert light to electricity, such as solar cells or photodetectors. The observation of red PL from PS layers at room temperature in 1990 [Cal] initiated vigorous research in this field, because efficient EL, the conversion of electricity into light, seemed to be within reach. Soon it was found that in addition to the red band, luminescence in the IR as well as in the blue-green region can be observed from PS. 

A single layer of a micro PS film on a silicon substrate always reduces its reflectivity, because of its lower refractive index compared to bulk Si. Hence micro and meso PS films of a thickness around 100 nm have been proposed as anti-reflec-tive coatings for solar cells [Pr8, Gr9, Pol, Bi4, Scl8, StlO]. 

Dennler, G. Scharber, M. C. Brabec, C. ]., Polymer-fullerene bulk-heterojunction solar cells. Adv. Mater. 2009, 21,1323-1338. 

The properties of the band gap in semiconductors often control the applicability of these materials in practical applications. To give just one example, Si is of great importance as a material for solar cells. The basic phenomenon that allows Si to be used in this way is that a photon can excite an electron in Si from the valence band into the conduction band. The unoccupied state created in the valence band is known as a hole, so this process has created an electron-hole pair. If the electron and hole can be physically separated, then they can create net electrical current. If, on the other hand, the electron and hole recombine before they are separated, no current will flow. One effect that can increase this recombination rate is the presence of metal impurities within a Si solar cell. This effect is illustrated in Fig. 8.4, which compares the DOS of bulk Si with the DOS of a large supercell of Si containing a single Au atom impurity. In the latter supercell, one Si atom in the pure material was replaced with a Au atom,... 

Fig. 3 Contemporary organic solar cell devices are based on donor/acceptor heterojunction device architectures, (a) Energy level diagram, (b) Planar heterojunction conligmation. (c) Bulk heterojunction configuration...

Liang YY, Xu Z, Xia JB, Tsai ST, Wu Y, Li G, Ray C, Yu LP (2010) For the bright future-bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells with power conversion efficiency of 7.4%. Adv Mater 22 E135... 

Howard lA, Laquai F (2010) Optical probes of charge generation and recombination in bulk heterojunction organic solar cells. Macromol Chem Phys 211 2063... 

Blom PWM, Mihailetchi VD, Koster LJA, Markov DE (2007) Device physics of polymer fullerene bulk heterojunction solar cells. Adv Mater 19 1551 Onsager L (1938) Initial recombination of ions. Phys Rev 54 554... 

Limpinsel M, Wagenpfahl A, Mingebach M, Deibel C, Dyakonov V (2010) Photocurrent in bulk heterojunction solar cells. Phys Rev B 81 085203... 

Pal SK, Kesti T, Maiti M, Zhang EL, Inganas O, Hellstrom S, Andersson MR, Oswald F, Langa F, Osterman T, Pascher T, Yartsev A, Sundstrom V (2010) Gemmate charge recombination in polymer/fullerene bulk heterojunction films and implications for solar cell function. J Am Chem Soc 132 12440... 

Cuiffi J, Benanti T, Nam WJ, Fonash S (2010) Modeling of bulk and bilayer organic heterojunction solar cells. Appl Phys Lett 96 143307... 

Scharber MC, Wuhlbacher D, Koppe M, Denk P, Waldauf C, Heeger AJ, Brabec CL (2006) Design rules for donors in bulk-heterojunction solar cells - towards 10% energy-conversion efficiency. Adv Mater 18 789... 

One of the most promising uses of C60 involves its potential application, when mixed with 7r-conjligated polymers, in polymer solar cells. Most often the so-called bulk heterojunction configuration is used, in which the active layer consists of a blend of electron-donating materials, for example, p-type conjugated polymers, and an electron-accepting material (n-type), such as (6,6)-phenyl-Cgi -butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM, Scheme 9.6).38... 

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