Fabrication of Silicon Photovoltaic Micro-Particles for Low-Cost Solar Energy Generation

<p>The relatively high cost of the high quality semiconductor materials (typically silicon) and complex conventional techniques for the fabrication of solar cells result in the overall high cost of the commercially available solar cells. Although, research in the field of solar technologies has been going on for a long time, but, utilization of solar energy still remains limited to a very few applications, owing to the high manufacturing costs and lower efficiency. In this work we present a new solar technology based on silicon photovoltaic micro-particles and demonstrate a fabrication technique for such particles. The photovoltaic micro-particles can be manufactured from waste or low grade silicon, thus, keeping the material and manufacturing costs low. Different diffusion techniques have been explored in this work to implement this fabrication process and manufacture the most efficient silicon PV particles. Different sets of silicon PV particles of different sizes have been fabricated, tested, and compared. It has also been demonstrated, how these silicon photovoltaic particles can be used to generate hydrogen from electrolytic solutions. Some future applications have also been proposed, such as, micro-particles based photo-electrochemical hydrogen generation system, self-assembled micro-particle based thin solar cells, and solar spray-paint. Further research in the growth of this technology may give rise to a whole new revolutionary solar cell technology.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters Thesis

Year dc:date.available

2009

Author dc:creator

• Kala, Siddhartha

Contributors dc:contributor

• Siavash Pourkamali Anaraki, Ph.D.

• Micro-particles
• Photovoltaics
• Solar cells
• Solar energy
• Other Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Power and Energy

Statement dc:rights

• <p>Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.</p>

Language dc:language

en

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/1384

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.du.edu:etd-2384