|
August 22nd, 2005
Solar cell research from UC Berkeley points to the eventual use of non-purified silicon for
production, which should lower the overall costs of solar cells.. One reason is that the removal of metal impurities
is expensive. At the Center of Advanced Materials at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers have said they
have found a way to process silicon for solar cells so that the metal impurities need not be removed, but without the associated
loss of inefficiency. Central to that process, according to the researchers, is the rate of cooling of the solar silicon.
According to Eicke Weber, principal investigator of the Center for Advanced Materials at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
(LBNL), “We have proposed a new approach to the use of dirty silicon. Instead of taking the impurities out, we can leave
them in but manipulate them in a way that reduces their detrimental impact on the solar cell efficiency. “ The cooling
has an effect on the distribution of impurities and defects, such that electrons can travel for longer distances without the
impurities affecting the current flow.
|
