Silicon Wafer Solar Panel

Instead of being constructed from solid silicon wafers like mono or poly crystalline solar panels amorphous panels are made by depositing non crystalline silicon on a substrate like glass plastic or metal.

Silicon wafer solar panel.

A silicon wafer is the building block of a solar panel. Once wafers are doped with various chemicals and electrified they become solar cells. Crystalline silicon wafers are the single largest cost item associated with making solar panels which capture the sun s energy to make electricity. Processing of silicon wafers into solar cells.

The basic component of a solar cell is pure silicon which has been used as an electrical component for decades. The standard process flow of producing solar cells from silicon wafers comprises 9 steps from a first quality check of the silicon wafers to the final testing of the ready solar cell. The high cost of silicon wafers has limited the widespread use of photovoltaic solar cells. These are made out of the element silicon a hard and brittle crystalline solid that is the second most abundant element in the earth s crust after.

The wafer is then given an anti reflective coating usually silicon nitride to improve absorption. One layer of silicon on an amorphous solar panel can be as thin as 1 micrometer which is much thinner than a human hair. Silicon solar panels are often referred to as 1 st generation panels as the silicon solar cell technology gained ground already in the 1950s. In the early 2000s solar wafers were small around 125 mm 5 in in length.

Solar cells are made out of silicon wafers. Currently over 90 of the current solar cell market is based on silicon. Today s silicon photovoltaic cells the heart of these solar panels are made from wafers of silicon that are 160 micrometers thick but with improved handling methods the researchers propose this could be shaved down to 100 micrometers and eventually as little as 40 micrometers or less which would only require one fourth as much silicon for a given size of panel. Finding ways to lower the cost of silicon wafers would increase the demand for solar energy and help grow the domestic solar energy industry.

Solar cells connected together become solar panels. To build a monocrystalline or polycrystalline panel wafers are assembled into rows and columns to form a rectangle covered with a glass sheet and framed together.