Silicon Wafer Solar Panel

A silicon wafer is the building block of a solar panel.

Silicon wafer solar panel.

The high cost of silicon wafers has limited the widespread use of photovoltaic solar cells. In the early 2000s solar wafers were small around 125 mm 5 in in length. The basic component of a solar cell is pure silicon which has been used as an electrical component for decades. One layer of silicon on an amorphous solar panel can be as thin as 1 micrometer which is much thinner than a human hair.

Many of the leading manufacturers including jinko longi and canadian solar have aligned with the 182mm format trina solar is pushing the larger 210mm size while longi the world s largest mono silicon wafer manufacture is using both the 166mm and 182mm sizes depending on the application. Finding ways to lower the cost of silicon wafers would increase the demand for solar energy and help grow the domestic solar energy industry. Crystalline silicon wafers are the single largest cost item associated with making solar panels which capture the sun s energy to make electricity. Monocrystalline and polycrystalline solar panels both monocrystalline and polycrystalline solar panels have cells made of silicon wafers.

These are made out of the element silicon a hard and brittle crystalline solid that is the second most abundant element in the earth s crust after. Once wafers are doped with various chemicals and electrified they become solar cells. Solar cells are made out of silicon wafers. The wafer is then given an anti reflective coating usually silicon nitride to improve absorption.

The standard process flow of producing solar cells from silicon wafers comprises 9 steps from a first quality check of the silicon wafers to the final testing of the ready solar cell. Solar cells connected together become solar panels. Silicon solar panels are often referred to as 1 st generation panels as the silicon solar cell technology gained ground already in the 1950s. Currently over 90 of the current solar cell market is based on silicon.

Screen printing of front and rear surface contacts in the final step of the production process front and rear surface contacts are screen printed onto the surface of the wafer to create the positive and negative contacts of the solar cell. Today s silicon photovoltaic cells the heart of these solar panels are made from wafers of silicon that are 160 micrometers thick but with improved handling methods the researchers propose this could be shaved down to 100 micrometers and eventually as little as 40 micrometers or less which would only require one fourth as much silicon for a given size of panel.