Transparent Energy
There are currently many research groups active in the field of photovoltaics in universities and research institutions around the world. This research can be divided into three areas.
- Making current technology solar cells cheaper and more efficient.
- Developing new technologies based on new solar cell architectural designs.
- Developing new materials to serve as light absorbers and charge carriers.
Ancient Solar Module
But the recent development is...
Many new solar cells use transparent thin films that are also conductors of electrical charge. The dominant conductive thin films used in research now are transparent conductive oxides (abbreviated "TCO"), and include fluorine-doped tin oxide (SnO2:F, or "FTO"), doped zinc oxide (e.g.: ZnO:Al), and indium tin oxide (abbreviated "ITO"). These conductive films are also used in the LCD industry for flat panel displays. The dual function of a TCO allows light to pass through a substrate window to the active light-absorbing material beneath, and also serves as an ohmic contact to transport photogenerated charge carriers away from that light-absorbing material. The present TCO materials are effective for research, but perhaps are not yet optimized for large-scale photovoltaic production. They require very special deposition conditions at high vacuum, they can sometimes suffer from poor mechanical strength, and most have poor transmittance in the infrared portion of the spectrum (e.g.: ITO thin films can also be used as infrared filters in airplane windows). These factors make large-scale manufacturing more costly.
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