Fundamentals of Photovoltaics

This lecture covers many practical aspects of PV manufacturing, testing, system design and real-world deployment.

This lecture examines the practical realization and theoretical limits of solar cell efficiency, with a closer look at solar simulators, making measurements, and material and device-based sources of efficiency loss.

This lecture introduces thin film solar technologies: generic advantages and disadvantages, device structures and performance, fabrication by vapor deposition, and market issues. The lecture ends with with a look at cadmium telluride (CdTe).

This lecture begins with the purpose of contacts, common types, and the impact of good and poor contact on IV characteristics. Compares Schottky and Ohmic contacts, the role of surface states, and ends with a brief look at heterojunctions.

This lecture describes the efficiency of a solar device, from input to output. Topics include: Snell's law, how light interacts with matter, and key methods used to improve optical absorption, including texturization and anti-reflection coating.

This lecture describes how semiconductors respond to optical charge excitation, and looks closely at the role of the band gap in determining maximum efficiency.

After a brief overview of course structure and objectives, this lecture introduces solar energy as a good match for world energy demand. A history of photovoltaics, survey of key technologies, and photovoltaic device fundamentals complete the session.

This lecture explores factors that affect the amount of sunlight reaching Earth's surface: e.g. orbit and tilt, scattering in the atmosphere, weather, and diffuse vs. direct sunlight.

This video summarizes how a solar cell turns light-generated mobile charges into electricity, highlighting the cell's physical structure with layers with different dopants, and the roles of electric fields and diffusion of holes and electrons.

Pure silicon has very low conductivity. This tutorial explains how "doping," the addition of very small amounts of elements like P and B to the Si material, create mobile charges that dramatically boost the material's conductivity.