Scientists fabricate novel electrical component to improve stability of solar cells:
In the future, decarbonized societies that use internet of things (IoT) devices will become commonplace. But to achieve this, we need to first realize highly efficient and stable sources of renewable energy. Solar cells are considered a promising option, but their electrical contacts suffer from a "tradeoff" relationship between surface passivation and conductivity. Recently, researchers from Japan have developed a new type of electrical contact that can overcome this problem.
The most recent type of commercial photovoltaic cell (solar cell) uses stacked layers of crystalline silicon (c-Si) and an ultrathin layer of silicon oxide (SiOx) to form an electrical contact. The SiOx is used as a "passivating" film—an unreactive layer that improves the performance, reliability, and stability of the device. But that does not mean that simply increasing the thickness of this passivating layer will lead to improved solar cells. SiOx is an electrical insulator and there is a trade-off relationship between passivation and the conductivity of the electrical contact in solar cells.
In a new study, published in ACS Applied Nano Materials, a research team led by Assistant Professor Kazuhiro Gotoh and Professor Noritaka Usami from Nagoya University has developed a novel SiOx layer that simultaneously allows high passivation and improved conductivity. Named NAnocrystalling Transport path in Ultrathin dielectrics for REinforcing passivating contact (NATURE contact), the new electrical contact consists of three-layer structures made up of a layer of silicon nanoparticles sandwiched between two layers of oxygen-rich SiOx. "You can think of a passivating film as a big wall with gates in it. In the NATURE contact, the big wall is the SiOx layer and the gates are Si nanocrystals," explains Dr. Gotoh.
The conductivity of the electrical contact in solar cells is dependent on the formation of a "carrier pathway" for the transport of electronic charges. The formation of this electrical pathway is dependent upon a high temperature treatment called "annealing."
Journal Reference:
Ryohei Tsubata, Kazuhiro Gotoh, Masashi Matsumi, et al. Silicon Nanocrystals Embedded in Nanolayered Silicon Oxide for Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells, ACS Applied Nano Materials (DOI: 10.1021/acsanm.1c03355)
(Score: 4, Funny) by drussell on Monday March 14 2022, @02:28PM (2 children)
That's quite an opening line...
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday March 15 2022, @01:38PM (1 child)
I only read a couple of paragraphs. The author isn't trying to teach or enlighten, he's trying to impress you with how smart he is. All morons do that; e.g.; the previous US president. This nonsense is usually used in government and board rooms (I read a lot of that nonsense working for Illinois, one paper used the word "enumerate" a dozen times in the first paragraph without once using the word "count").
It only took a second to realize that "decarbonized society" was marketspeak (the language of idiots) for a society that doesn't use fossil fuel.
Impeach Donald Palpatine and his sidekick Elon Vader
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 16 2022, @02:42PM
"decarbonized society": i think they're trying to switch humans from being made of "carbon" to "silicon". preliminary test show them to be very pretty and highly profitable :P
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday March 14 2022, @09:28PM (1 child)
I understand that over the 2010 decade, solar cells, especially their prices, became far more practical. But even now, I'm just not seeing that they make sense, from a strictly local view centered on the homeowner. If it was, say, pay $20,000, for a system that will, if all goes well, take 10 years to recoup that initial investment, yes, that could be a good bet. If you have to finance it, however, that can be a deal killer. An option is to let the utility have ownership of the solar cells on your roof. That complicates matters if you want to sell the home.
But if it's $30,000 up front, and takes 30 years to pay back, then, no. Just too much can happen in such a long time span. Solar cell array destroyed by a hailstorm, or, only lasts 25 years, or is rendered obsolete 5 years later by some groundbreaking advance, or, your house burns down, or is condemned to make way for a bypass, or the political scene undergoes a really radical change. Sure, if your home is taken through Eminent Domain, you should receive a fair value for it, including something for those solar cells. Call me cynical, but I've seen too often assessments favorable to those who pay the assessors' salaries, which ain't you. For the really radical change, suppose the Greenland ice sheet melts, and suddenly, the politicians who'd all been riding the Global Warming denialism bandwagon get voted out, or, if things are bad enough, executed in a revolution, and their replacements scramble with emergency measure after emergency measure to deal with the problem. And one of those measures is to make solar cells a far better deal, dramatically lower their prices. But you jumped too soon, and now are stuck in what turned out to be a very bad deal, for you. Anyway, if that does happen, it'll be too late to throw a bunch of solar cells on top of a bunch of homes. We will have far more urgent fires to put out. Solar cells on your roof will be the least of your concerns if you have thousands of migrants fleeing the flooded coasts, needing a place to live such as your home, along with crop failures, famine, war, and the ominous possibility that this time, someone will turn the war nuclear.
It may make sense to pay a premium, take one for the team, if it really helps with Global Warming. But I often do not see that either. From supply questions over the external costs of manufacturing solar cells, to the manner in which so-called green business is pitched, there's too much uncertainty. Instead, I'm seeing predatory businesses faking their green cred while really trying to play upon our sense of responsibility on this matter, trying to sell us pie in the sky. A decade ago, it was a constant stream of home improvement businesses trying to sell us on double pane windows. $10,000 to replace 10 windows and 2 patio doors. I said "no" to that. They made another offer, $6000 to do just the windows, and forget the patio doors. I couldn't understand why it was so incredibly costly to replace only 10 windows. $600 per window, WTF? I mean, come on, I've had a car windshield replaced for $200. I finally sat down and ran the numbers, to try to figure out what upgrading the windows might really be worth, and concluded that $4000 was the absolute max that might be worth paying, while $2000 was the highest price that I could feel comfortable paying. Still far too much guesswork in the figures. How could I know how much energy double pane windows would really save? Sure couldn't believe the home improvement bizs' way too optimistic and weasely numbers. They claimed "up to" 50% savings on "heating and cooling" costs. Doubtless that figure was generated through massive cherry picking. I at least did have good data on what our heating and cooling really cost: $700 per year. Taking 50% to be the best case, what might an average case be? 25% savings? So, the double pane windows would save us $175 per year? Which means, 57 years to reach $10,000 in savings. That's a hard pass.
It became painfully clear that their sales efforts were designed to obscure that the real value of this upgrade was very little. One of their assertions is that such improvements increase the value of your home. No, they don't. It's like with cars, again. Your used car for sale will fetch precisely $0 more if you go to the expense of putting on good quality new tires, rather than if you'd just left the worn out retreads on it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 15 2022, @02:01AM
> double pane windows
Our house, Great Lakes area, was built early 1960s, with nice double glazed wood framed windows (the kind with hinges on the side). They are in good shape, but on cold days (well below freezing) they still let a lot of heat out. More to the point, if you sit by one, the cold downdraft coming down the window is really uncomfortable. New construction around here is starting to use triple glazed windows.
We turned our double glazed into triple layer with cheap clear insulating film from 3M (there are other brands, haven't tried them). It attaches to the window frame with double stick tape and then is shrunk with a hair dryer to get out the wrinkles. While the instructions say to remove every summer, we didn't see any reason to do that. The extra layer probably saves a bit on the summer air conditioning bill. Eventually the plastic starts to fail/tear, I think we've been getting about 5-6 years from each application, we're on the second set now (first set installed around 2010).
Not recommended for houses with kids or pets that jump at the windows....