Abstract
Silicon electroplating offers a low-cost method for the production of high-performance low-cost silicon solar cells that can be used in small portables and large-scale applications, like the grid. Silicon remains the semiconductor of choice because silicon has the best combination of efficiency, cost, durability, and availability. Silicon photovoltaic (PV) devices are likely to dominate the market for a long time. Silicon solar cells have reasonable efficiency (up to 15%), cost (as low as $2/peak watt), and excellent reliability (losing less than 1% power output per year over 25 years), and since silica is abundant, silicon depletion is not a worry. Although silicon is the best photovoltaic option and has the largest market share, it is still too costly to provide the majority of grid power. Cost remains a major barrier to further market penetration, because current thin film semiconducting silicon preparation uses high-temperature (750–1,000°C) deposition processes, such as chemical vapor deposition (CVD), which require high levels of electrical power and energy and convert only 10% of the silane feed to useful silicon. Clearly silicon PV manufacturers need to increase efficiency and lower wastes and cost. Silicon electrodeposition offers an effective alternative to CVD for making silicon devices with substantially reduced processing costs so that solar photovoltaics can be cost competitive with the typical cost for installing new electrical power generators in the grid. Using silicon electrodeposition as the silicon processing in the manufacture of a variety of semiconductor applications is reviewed. A practical way of electroplating silicon from silicon salts dissolved in ionic liquids is discussed with early results and prospects.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank Jeffery Thomson, Telpriore Tucker, and John Gustafson for preliminary experiments on silicon electroplating and characterization, John Brews for discussion leading to design of photovoltaic structures based on silicon electroplating and the Office of Naval Research for support of portions of this work on capacitors under Project number H94003-09-2-0902, James Morris, Project Monitor and the Edson Venture Program of the State of Arizona for support of the work on electroplating of silicon.
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Gervasio, D.F., Palusinski, O. (2013). Silicon Electroplating for Low Cost Solar Cells and Thin Film Transistors. In: Korkin, A., Lockwood, D. (eds) Nanoscale Applications for Information and Energy Systems. Nanostructure Science and Technology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5016-0_5
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