Creation and simple fabrication of crystalline silicon film-carbon nanotube flexible solar cells

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K14216
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Reaction engineering/Process system
• Research Institution: Waseda University
• Principal Investigator: Noda Suguru 早稲田大学, 理工学術院, 教授 (50312997)
• Research Collaborator: YAMASAKI Yuhei ; MURAMOTO Rie ; FUJITA Makoto ; ISHIJIMA Naoya ; HASEGAWA Kei ; SUGIME Hisashi ; OSAWA Toshio
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 太陽電池 / 結晶シリコン薄膜 / 急速蒸着 / カーボンナノチューブ / 塗布 / 簡易製造

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We conducted this research to realize light-weight, stable, low-cost flexible solar cells using abundant chemical elements of carbon and silicon via simple, rapid, high-yield processes. We developed a rapid vapor deposition process to make Si films to use high-purity Si several ten-times more efficiently than the present bulk crystalline Si solar cells. Si is rapidly deposited at 10 μm in 1 min by heating the Si source to 2000 ℃, much higher than its melting point of 1414 ℃, and grain size larger than 100 μm is realized by changing the temperature of the growth substrates from above to below the melting point of Si. In parallel, simple cell fabrication is also developed. Commercially available carbon nanotube powders are dispersed in water using surfactant, their thin films are fabricated via vacuum filtration. These films are attached to n-Si wafers and power conversion efficiency of 10% is realized. We will combine these technologies toward their practical use.

Free Research Field

反応工学、材料プロセス