Prof. Venkat Selvamanickam of the University of Houston received a $1.5 million grant from the US Department of Energy's SunShot project to produce high-efficiency, low-cost thin-film photovoltaic cells.
The SunShot project was created in 2011 to create cost-competitive solar cells in 10 years compared to other forms of electricity. Since then, 350 projects have been funded with the goal of reducing solar power costs to 6 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Professor Selvamanickam, director of the Center for Applied Research at the Texas Superconduct Center and Professor of Mechanical Engineering, said that he began to consider the development of solar cell technology several years ago, based on a roll-to-roll manufacturing technique similar to that used at low-cost metals. The process of coating a semiconductor film on a substrate. The most efficient solar cell is to cover a gallium arsenide layer on a germanium wafer. However, due to the high cost of silicon wafers and manufacturing processes, gallium arsenide solar cells are expensive. At the same time, the small area of ​​the wafer requires multiple wafers to cover a large area, so it is mainly used for space exploration.
Prof. Selvamanickam's craftsmanship includes the use of strips of metal foil coated with tantalum film (although another substance can be used as a substrate) and the use of roll-to-roll technology to move the strips at high speeds. With recoating and arsenic vapour.
This work was done at the Energy Devices Manufacturing Laboratory at the University of Houston's Energy Research Park (founded in 2010 where the main business was the rapid development of industrial development and the transfer of new technologies for conversion), Professor Selvamanickam. SunShot's new project will work with the South Dakota Mining and Technology Institute.
Prof. Selvamanickam's team presented a proof of concept application to the U.S. Department of Energy, showing high quality gallium arsenide thin films on metal foil. Other researchers have used roll-to-roll solar cell manufacturing techniques, but not on gallium arsenide materials, so the efficiency is much lower. On-chip gallium arsenide single-junction solar cells can operate at a conversion efficiency of 28.5% at a cost of a few dollars per watt. Professor Selvamanickam's goal is to produce solar cells with 24% conversion efficiency at a cost of 20 cents per watt. (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Institute of Electronic Science and Technology Information Huang Qinghong)
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