Abstract
Solar cells were invented more than 30 years ago, but have not yet achieved the commercial success predicted many times in the past. There is no question that they efficiently convert the eternally available sunlight directly to electricity, they have the reliability inherent in a system with no moving parts, they can be used as either distributed power sources or central power stations, and they yield minimal environmental contamination or safety hazards. However, it is clear that additional criteria must be imposed to guarantee their large-scale commercial utilization, since they must compete successfully with conventional power sources such as coal, gas, oil, and nuclear energy. The only reason for their lack of use prior to now has been the enormous cost of the heretofore conventional technology, that of crystalline-silicon solar cells. This problem is due to the following facts:
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(1)
Crystalline silicon must be 100 µm thick. This intrinsicrequirement cannot be overcome.
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(2)
Crystals are pulled from the melt, which presently limits the diameter of single solar cells to 15 cm.
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(3)
More than half of the material is lost during cutting and polishing.
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© 1987 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
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Adler, D. (1987). Amorphous Silicon Solar Cells. In: Physics and Technology of Solar Energy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3941-7_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3941-7_8
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