Anatomy of a photovoltaic cell

From the Photovoltaic Effect to Photoelectric Solar Cells

Figure 1 - Air mass

Figure 2 - Zinc-blende structure

Figure 3 - Tape structure

Figure 4 - Transition of an electron from the top of the valence band to the bottom of the conduction band

Figure 5 - Fermi-Dirac distribution f, FD, and state density g for a three-dimensional solid; their product gives the electron density n as a function of energy

Figure 6 - Direction of movement of charge carriers under the influence of an electric field and the resulting current

Figure 7 - Band structure of silicon (left) and gallium arsenide (center), exhibiting an indirect and direct bandgap, respectively (figure adapted from [8])

Figure 8 - Optical absorption in direct-bandgap and indirect-bandgap semiconductors

Figure 9 - Recombination process for intrinsic direct-bandgap, intrinsic indirect-bandgap, and dopant-introduced acceptor-level semiconductors

Figure 10 - Temperature dependence of the electron density in a semiconductor doped with ND &#61; 1016 cm-3

Figure 11 - pn junction

Figure 12 - Polarized p-n junction

Figure 13 - Illuminated p-n junction

Figure 14 - Absorption of a photon &#34;far&#34; and &#34;near&#34; the space charge region

Figure 15 - Changes in power output at different temperatures with constant brightness

Figure 16 - Variation of the I(V) curve of a pn junction (left) for different illuminance levels at a constant temperature and (right) for different temperatures at a constant illuminance level

Figure 17 - Maximum theoretical efficiency for various materials under the AM1.5G spectrum (according to [10])

Figure 18 - Relative abundance of certain materials that can form p-n junctions

Figure 19 - CH3NH3PbI3 perovskite lattice, with lead atoms shown in gray and iodine atoms in purple (adapted from [13], ICSD data [14])

Figure 20 - Texturing the top and bottom surfaces of a photovoltaic cell

Figure 21 - Architecture of a p-i-n junction

Figure 22 - Schematic architecture of a perovskite-based solar cell