Related Resources: Renewable Energy

Photovoltaic Fundamentals

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Open: Photovoltaic Fundamentals

• Overview of Technology Progress
  • Growing Market
  • Promising Future
• The Photovoltaic Effect
  • Energy from the sun
  • Atomic description of Silicon
  • Light Absorption and Creating Charge Carriers
  • Forming and ELectric Field
  • Electric Filed in action: Driving the charge carriers
  • Energy ban gaps
• Solar Cells
  • Single-Crystal Cells
  Beyond Single-Crystal Silicon
  • Semicrytalline and Polycrystalline Silicon Cells
  • Thin-Film Solar Cells
  • Gallium Arsenide Solar Cells
  • Multijunction Devices
• Modules, Arrays, and Systems
  • Flat Plate Collectors
  • Concentrator Collectors
  • Balance of System