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Silicon Based Photovoltaic Materials

  • Chapter
Eco- and Renewable Energy Materials

Abstract

Solar energy is an idea renewable energy resource due to its abundance and inexhaustibility. Solar cells, which convert sunlight into electricity, are the most direct devices to use solar energy. Silicon is the most widely used material for solar cells due to its abundance in nature, stability, non-toxicity and well established refining and processing technologies. This chapter, which is divided into five sections, presents a brief review on the research progress of silicon as photovoltaic materials. After a short introduction in section 1, section 2 summarizes the history and current situation of the traditional wafer-based crystalline silicon solar cells. Section 3 draws attention to the development of thin-film silicon solar cells which have the significant advantage in cost reduction. The recently active and compelling nano-structured silicon technologies are reviewed in section 4. Finally, a conclusion and perspective is presented as section 5.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing National Laboratory of Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093, P. R. China

    Chenghui Li

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  1. Chenghui Li
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Ecomaterials and Renewable Energy Research Center (ERERC), Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China

    Yong Zhou

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© 2013 Science Press Beijing and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Li, C. (2013). Silicon Based Photovoltaic Materials. In: Zhou, Y. (eds) Eco- and Renewable Energy Materials. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33497-9_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33497-9_1

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-33496-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-33497-9

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