Solar cells development

First solar cell developed by Bell Telephone Laboratories researchers. 

Crossley, P.A. Noel, G.T. Wolf, M. Review and Evaluation of Past Solar-Cell Development Efforts Contract Number NASW-1427 (AED R-3346) RCA Astro-Electronics Division for NASA Washington, DC, 1968. 

Other semiconductors in use in solar cells include GaAs (e.g. in space satellites), CdTe (a promising newcomer to solar cell development) and Ti02 (used in the Gratzel cell which involves a novel design in which a Ti02 film is coated with an organic dye). 

The developed specimens (f) and (g) are n-type in nature, whereas specimen (h) is p-type. The prototype solar cells developed and discussed here are (i) p-n type heterojunction (ii) unipolar with redox pair of electrodes. I-V characteristics of the developed biopolymeric solar cell are shown in Figure 12.47. Figures 12.47a, 12.47b, and 12.47c show the I-V characteristics of the developed solar cells, namely HJl, HJ2, and HJ3 respectively. In all cases, the recorded current density was found to be high along with the scope for further modification. The short circuited current and open circuit voltages of all the cells are given in their respective figure captions. It appears that all the developed cells are competitive. 

Fig. 7.22 Device structure of a high efficiency GaInP2/GaAs/Ge triple-junction solar cell developed at NREL and commercialized by Spectrolab...

Novel Approaches in Hybrid Solar Cell Development 381... 

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