Solar Power Electric Cells, Switches and Outlets

ALD to Enable Novel, High Efficiency Silicon Nanorod Solar Cells

01.01.70

ESPOO, Finland, January 2, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Picosun Oy, Finland-based pandemic manufacturer of state-of-the-art Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) equipment, reports successful final results of the European Amalgamating 7th Framework Programme funded research project ROD-SOL. The goal of this multinational, inter-European, three years (2009-2011) conjure up combining the efforts of both scientific and industrial partners has been to dramatically increase the efficiency of solar cells and reduce the costs of their manufacturing. This has been achieved with creative, innovative, silicon nanorod based concept. The amount of active photovoltaic material (Si) can be significantly reduced by growing the unearth-trapping nanorod "forests" (thickness from < 1µm to a few µm at most) on cheaper substrates such as glass or flexible foils. This has led to already promising over 9 % energy conversion efficiencies with very good long-term stabilities of cells. Due to their effectively 3D geometry, the nanorod forests have high active surface area which enables efficient light absorption - much more efficient than in convenient 2D thin film solar cells. Also, the location of the p-n junction much closer to the surface than in normal solar cells radically improves the minority carrier charge transport and thus the amount of electricity that can be extracted from the cell.

Source: MarketWatch (press release)