PV Technology and Manufacturing
1. Front matter
2. Chapter 1: Introduction
a. Current market trends: importance of solar photovoltaics
b. Energy conversion and harvesting (theoretical consideration of the photovoltaic conversion: brief device physics, power and efficiency)
c. Role of precursors, materials and device physics on device performance
3. Chapter 2: First generation solar cells
a. Introduction and proliferation
b. History of manufacturing technology
c. Available conventional manufacturing processes
4. Chapter 3: Solar Grade Silicon Feedstock
a. Harvesting and conventional processing of silicon material
b. Energy and environmental impact
c. Cost and lifecycle analysis of silicon solar panels
5. Chapter 4: Silicon Manufacturing Techniques
a. State of the art processing technologies (from sand to wafer)
b. Enhancements to solar photovoltaic modules: optical, electrical and mechanical material properties
c. Doping considerations: materials and processes
d. Surface and bulk passivation
6. Chapter 5: Monocrystalline and multicrystalline Silicon Solar Cells and Modules
a. Monocrystalline vs. multicrystalline processing and application
b. Market shares
c. wafer making and testing
i. Bulk silicon doping
ii. Dicing, slicing and cleaning
iii. Bulk properties, passivation and surface texturing
iv. Anti-reflection coating
v. Front and back contact printing
vi. Aperture and back surface field (BSF) materials and manufacturing consideration
vii. Co-firing
viii. Wafer testing and sorting
d. Module making and testing
i. Wafer connection welding (series/parallel)
ii. Module framing, glazing and back surface field insulation (Tedlar)
iii. Module flash test, packaging and storage
7. Chapter 6: Thin-film Solar cells
This chapter focuses on the shift from bulk silicon technologies into thin film technologies to reduce material waste, production time and consequently, unit cost. The manufacturing technologies, material and precursors considerations will be covered for the most commercially successful technologies.
a. Materials and motivation for thin film device production
b. Manufacturing technologies: chemical vapor deposition, physical vapor deposition (pulsed laser deposition, atomic layer deposition, sputtering, thermal evaporation) and slot-dye, doctor blading, drop casting and spin-coating techniques.
c. Most common technologies: manufacturing techniques and performance (efficiency and power) for the following:
i. Amorphous silicon solar cells manufacturing technologies
ii. Cadmium-telluride (CdTe) solar cells manufacturing technologies
iii. Copper-indium-gallium-selenide (CIGS) solar cells manufacturing technologies
8. Chapter 7: Third generation PVs- Dye Sensitized Solar Cells and Modules (DSSCs)
a. Available manufacturing technology
b. Device testing
c. Do-it-yourself project and case study
9. Chapter 8: Third generation PVs- Organic Photovoltaics (OPVs)
a. Available manufacturing technology
b. Device testing
10.Chapter 9: Third generation perovskite
a. Available manufacturing technology
b. Device testing
c. Do-it-yourself project and case study (from perovskite project group at University of Sharjah)
11.Chapter 10: Recent advances in solar cell technology, materials and manufacturing
a. Silicon-perovskite tandem solar cells (manufacturing consideration and operational parameters)
b. Bifacial solar cells (materials, manufacturing considerations and applications)
c. Semi-transparent bifacial solar cells (materials, manufacturing considerations and applications)
d. Agrivoltaic applications: large-scale projects in arid areas (India and the Middle East)
e. Flexible conductive substrates (metal meshes, PET/ITO substrates, etc.)
