Proceedings National Graduate Conference 2012 (NatGrad2012),

Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Putrajaya Campus, 8-10 Nov 2012

A Review on Comparison between Traditional

Silicon Solar Cells and Thin- Film CdTe Solar Cells
Mohammadnoor Imamzai 1, Mohammadreza Aghaei 1, Yasmin Hanum Md Thayoob 3,
Mohammadreza Forouzanfar 2
1
Department of Electrical Power Engineering, Universiti Tenaga Nasional
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Tenaga Nasional
3
Programme Head Electrical Engineering Postgraduate Programmes, Universiti Tenaga Nasional

[email protected]

Abstract: Solar energy is one of the most significant because these cells have different layers in one cell
types of the sustainable and renewable energy sources which reduce the losses of current (Jsc) in solar cells.
that have been used in the world. Photo voltaic (PV) is When the light’s spectrum strive the surface of the
known as the direct conversion of the sunlight to solar cells, some of photon’s energy will be absorbed
electricity energy with the used of solar cells. Various and converted to electrical energy, and some of the
materials and technologies are employed to produce photon’s energy will be converted to heat energy, and
solar cell fabrication based on low cost and high the rest will be lost [1]. When different absorber layers
conversion efficiency. and buffer layers are employed, the efficiency of solar
Silicon is employed as first material to manufacture cells will be enhanced in solar modules [2].
Solar cells but its disadvantages are high cost and lower Thin-film technologies reduce the amount of material
efficiency. Thin-film solar cells are known as second required in creating the active material of solar cell.
generation of the solar cell fabrication technologies to Most thin-film solar cells are sandwiched between two
produce power electrical energy. panes of glass to make a module. Since silicon solar
In fact Thin-Film solar cells are manufactured based on panels only use one pane of glass, Thin-Film panels are
higher efficiency as compare with traditional silicon approximately twice as heavy as crystalline silicon
solar cells this is because Thin-Film solar cells are panels [2, 3].
comprised of several layers that help to reduce current Thin-film solar technologies have enjoyed large
losses. When the sunlight strives at the solar cells, investment due to the success of First Solar and the
photons with higher energy will be absorbed by higher largely unfulfilled promise of lower cost and flexibility
layers, and vice versa, low energy photons will be compared to wafer silicon cells, but they have not
absorbed with lower layers of Thin-Film solar cells that become mainstream solar products due to their lower
lead to prevention of wasting energy. In this paper the efficiency and corresponding larger area consumption
application of comparison between traditional and thin- per watt production. Cadmium telluride (CdTe), Copper
film CdTe carried by other researchers ( literature Indium Gallium Selenide (CIGS) and amorphous
review) to compare the Thin-Film solar cell such as silicon (A-Si) are three thin-film technologies often
Cadmium Telluride and traditional silicon solar cells to used as outdoor photovoltaic solar power production.
indicate that Thin-Film solar cells like CdTe are more CdTe technology is most cost competitive among them.
economical than traditional solar cells. CdTe technology costs about 30% less than CIGS
technology and 40% less than A-Si technology in 2011
Keywords– Thin-Film Solar Cells; Photo Voltaic; [3]. this research by gathering the information of both
Silicon Thin-Film; CdTe Thin-Film; Solar cell kinds of solar cells(traditional silicon cells and CdTe
fabrication. cells) shows that Thin-Film solar cells such as CdTe are
more economical compared to traditional silicon solar
cells (by saving the cost, energy, time) and why Thin-
Film technology was started and is extending day by
I. INTRODUCTION day[4].
The Solar cell is valuable by consideration of
conversion efficiency and low manufacture cost. Thin-
Film solar cell is proposed higher efficiency, this is
 Proceedings National Graduate Conference 2012 (NatGrad2012),
Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Putrajaya Campus, 8-10 Nov 2012

II. THIN-FILM APPROACHES b) The value of the photo carrier’s life time as a
fraction of doping and defects
Large numbers of materials exhibit the photovoltaic c) The ability of material to be fabricated
effect and can be used for the solar cells production; economically in large areas the ability to form
however, useful solar cell needs to satisfy some efficient collecting structure
requirement as the following: d) Ability of the cell to work eventually under
concentrated radiation [8].
a) High cell conversion efficiency
b) The material should be inexpensive and
available and non-toxic. III. TRADITIONAL SILICON SOLAR CELLS
c) The cell production method should be low
cost, fast and simple Traditional solar cells are made from silicon, and are
d) The cells performance should be stable for currently the most efficient solar cells available for
long period of time around 20 years residential use and account for around more than 80
percent of all the solar panels sold around the world.
Virtually, over 80 percent of today commercial PV Generally silicon based solar cells are more efficient
modules are made of silicon. Other than silicon and longer lasting than non silicon based cells.
semiconductors materials like CdTe, CIGS, and etc, However, they are more at risk to lose some of their
have been investigated for use in thin-Film cells [5]. efficiency at higher temperatures (hot sunny days), than
CIGS shows considerable promise for higher efficiency thin-film solar cells [7].
and CdTe solar cell are promising for low cost There are currently four types of silicon based cells that
production. Among the different PV technologies, thin- are used for the production of solar panels for
film is the most potential for low cost and high residential usage. The types are based on the type of
efficiency or commercially viable PV cells [6]. silicon used, specifically:
The main advantage of Thin-Film solar cell is their
promise of lower cost, since less energy are required for A. Monocrystalline Silicon Cells
processing and relatively lower cost for the materials
are required and large scale production is feasible [7].
The research activities have shifted gradually towards The oldest solar cell technology and still the most
thin- film solar cell compound semiconductors, which popular and efficient are solar cells made from thin
wafers of silicon. These are called monocrystalline solar
have great potential to attain high efficiency and high
cells because the cells are sliced from large single
stability as compare to a-Si Solar cells [7].
crystals that have been painstakingly grown under
Many easier methods of deposition have been used to
produce poly crystalline CdTe layers. These methods carefully controlled conditions. Typically, the cells are
are electrode position, close–spaced sublimation, a few inches across, and a number of cells are laid out
sputtering, screen printing and spraying. The parameters in a grid to create a panel. Relative to the other types of
cells, they have higher efficiency (up to 24.2%),
that are used to characterize the solar cell output are
meaning you will obtain more electricity from a given
open circuit voltage (Voc), short circuit current (Jsc),
fill factor (FF), which ideally FF can be expressed with area of panel. This is useful if you only have a limited
Voc. Energy gap also is a major factor of determining area for mounting your panels, or want to keep the
the electrical conductivity of a solid. In graphs of installation small for aesthetic reasons. However,
the electronic band structure of solids, the band gap growing large crystals of pure silicon is a difficult and
generally refers to the energy difference (in electron very energy-intensive process, so the production costs
volts) between the top of the valence band and the for this type of panel have historically been the highest
bottom of the conduction band in insulators and of all the solar panel types [3].
semiconductors. Production methods have improved though, and prices
This is equivalent to the energy required to free an outer for raw silicon as well as to build panels from
monocrystalline solar cells have fallen a great deal over
shell electron from its orbit about the nucleus to become
the years, partly driven by competition as other types of
a mobile charge carrier, able to move freely within the
solid material. the optimum Energy gap (Eg) for panel have been produced. Another issue to keep in
maximum output of solar cells is between 1.3-1.6 eV, mind about panels made from monocrystalline silicon
cells is that they lose their efficiency as the temperature
CdTe solar cells have Eg=1.45eV which is suitable Eg
increases about 25˚C, so they need to be installed in
for optimum cell’s output. The criteria of choice for
best materials of PV cells: such a way as to permit the air to circulate over and
under the panels to improve their efficiency [3].
a) Value of Eg and the nature of the band to band
transitions
 Proceedings National Graduate Conference 2012 (NatGrad2012),
Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Putrajaya Campus, 8-10 Nov 2012

B. Polycrstalline Silicon Cells conversion because of the possibility of higher

efficiency with reduced materials, reliable and stable
It is cheaper to produce silicon wafers in molds from cell operation. CdTe solar cells have some advantages.
multiple silicon crystals rather than from a single crystal First of all the CdTe based solar cells are produced from
as the conditions for growth do not need to be as tightly polycrystalline materials and glass. Secondly the layer
controlled. In this form, a number of interlocking of CdTe solar cells can be deposited using different low
silicon crystals grows together. Panels based on these cost techniques. Thirdly CdTe has direct optimum band
cells are cheaper per unit area than monocrystalline gap (1.45ev) with high absorption coefficient over
panels - but they are also slightly less efficient (up to 5x10power15 per centimeter. This means all the
19.3%). potential photons with energy greater than the band gap
can be absorbed within a few micrometer of CdTe
absorber layer. Hence, this makes the cost of material
C. Amorphous Silicon Cells
for based CdTe solar cells relatively very low which the
objective of PV cell researcher which is using less
Most solar cells used in calculators and many small material by making the cells thinner. By choosing the
electronic devices are made from amorphous silicon baseline CdTe solar cells with supersaturate structure,
cells. Instead of growing silicon crystals as is done in we can modify the baseline case to increase the
making the two previous types of solar cells, silicon is efficiency and reduce the cost. The baseline case
deposited in a very thin layer on to a backing substrate efficiency has been recorded around 15% which is low
such as metal, glass or even plastic. Sometimes several and has higher cost compared to thinner CdTe solar
layers of silicon, doped in slightly different ways to cells. The way which we can modify the baseline cases
respond to different wavelengths of light, are laid on top are:
of one another to improve the efficiency. The a) Reducing the thickness of the front contact by
production methods are complex, but less energy inserting suitable buffer layer which reduces the cost.
intensive than crystalline panels, and prices have been The buffer layer increases the morphology of the
coming down as panels are mass-produced using this window layer and reduce the leakage current due to
process. One advantage of using very thin layers of pinholes, Buffer layer such as ZNO [9].
silicon is that the panels can be made flexible. The b) Choice of suitable window layer with high energy
disadvantage of amorphous panels is that they are much gap and reducing its thickness which increase the blue
less efficient per unit area (up to 10%) and are generally region response of the cells and reduces the surface
not suitable for roof installations you would typically recombination current in the window layer.
need nearly double the panel area for the same power c) Inserting suitable back surface field layer which
output, having said that, for a given power rating, they reduces the back surface recombination and reduce the
do perform better at low light levels than crystalline barrier height of holes. This subsequently increases the
panels [3]. Voc and Jsc and efficiency.BSF such as ZnTe, Sb2Te3,
As2Te3.
D. Hybrid Silicon Cells
d) Increasing the doping and minority carrier life time
One recent trend in the industry is the emergence of of absorber layer which increase the Voc and FF.
hybrid silicon cells and several companies are now The maximum theoretical efficiency of CdS/CdTe cell
exploring ways of combining different materials to at standard solar spectrum is about 29% but with above
make solar cells with better efficiency, longer life, and improvements practical devices with higher efficiency
at reduced costs. Recently, Sanyo introduced a hybrid around 19% is feasible [10]. The some result which has
HIT cell whereby a layer of amorphous silicon is been obtained by using 1D AMPS software is [11]:
deposited on top of single crystal wafers. The result is
an efficient solar cell that performs well in terms of ITO/ZNO/CDS/CdTe/ZnTe/ni
indirect light and is much less likely to lose efficiency
Voc=.97 Jsc=25.66 FF=.81 EFF=20.00%
as the temperature climbs [3].
ITO/ZnO/CdS/CdTe/Sb2Te3/Mo

IV. CdTe THIN-FILM Voc=.97 Jsc=25.04 FF=.76 EFF=18.59

Various materials and technologies are used to produce ITO/ZnO/CdS/CdTe/As2Te3/Al

solar cell fabrication based on low cost and high
efficiency. One of these solar cells is CdTe solar cell. Voc=.93 Jsc=25.87 FF=.82 EFF=19.90
Thin-Film CdTe based PV cells are one of the most
promising candidates for low cost PV energy
 Proceedings National Graduate Conference 2012 (NatGrad2012),
Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Putrajaya Campus, 8-10 Nov 2012

V. COMPARISON based on low cost and high conversion efficiency of the

cells. Traditional Silicon cells have a quite high
Silicon cells are non toxic and is abundant compared to efficiency compared to CdTe Thin-Film cells, but very
CdTe cells. As we know the optimum band gap for a pure silicon is needed, and due to the energy-requiring
layer to have optimum Jsc and Voc is between 1.4-1.6 process, the price is high compared to the power output.
eV but energy gap of silicon solar cells are 1.1ev which By making ultra thin CdTe solar cell, we decrease the
is lower than CdTe Thin-Film (1.45). required material, required energy, required time and
First generation solar cells accounted for 80% of cost of the CdTe solar cells and subsequently increasing
commercial production compared to Thin-Film solar the efficiency. Hence the second generation solar cells
cells (second generation solar cells), though the market (Thin-Film solar cells) such as CdTe solar cells are
preferred to be used which the cost of the cells are not
share of these solar cells are declining [3]. very high compared to output power. The objective of
The advantages of Thin-Film solar cells are the this research is to show that Thin-Film solar cells like
following: CdTe are more economical to be used in solar cells
compared to traditional silicon solar cells.
a) Lower manufacturing costs
b) Lower cost per watt can be achieved
c) Reduced mass ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
d) Less support is needed when placing panels on
rooftops I would like to thank Asso.Prof. Dr. Nowshad Amin his
e) Allows fitting panels on light or flexible guidance in this current paper. In particular, Dr.Y.H.
materials, even textiles.
Md Thayoob’s recommendations and suggestions have
been invaluable for the project and this conference
The current Disadvantages of Thin-Film solar cells are
the following: paper.

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 Proceedings National Graduate Conference 2012 (NatGrad2012),
Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Putrajaya Campus, 8-10 Nov 2012

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