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Most Promising Solar Technologies
Published in Anco S. Blazev, Solar Technologies for the 21st Century, 2021
Basically, polycrystalline silicon has much lower efficiency than monocrystalline silicon, but it is much cheaper and efficient to produce. At $20/Kg polycrystalline silicon castings per batch, vs. the $60/Kg batch of a Czochralski (CZ) process monocrystalline silicon, not to mention the related complexity of the latter process.
Renewable Energy through Nanotechnology
Published in Cherry Bhargava, Amit Sachdeva, Nanotechnology, 2020
W. Nada, S. Dania, Sharon Santhosh, Asha Anish Madhavan
As we know, the sun is continuously irradiating the earth with an intensity of 1.2x105 TW, whereas the current worldwide energy consumption is just 12 TW which is only 0.001% of the energy that we receive from the sun [13,14]. But at the same time, in the renewable energy sector, solar PV contributes only 0.5% of total volume. Silicon solar panels have shown a power conversion efficiency of ~25% whereas the maximum efficiency calculated for a silicon solar cell is 33.7% under AM 1.57. Though the efficiency of silicon solar cells is good, the manufacturing cost is very high. Further, there are environmental hazards for the processing of silicon [15]. Nanotechnology has played a major role in improving cell efficiency, energy conversion and conservation. This can be obtained via modifying light interacting semiconductors, tweaking photo catalyst and many other methods. A comprehensive discussion of nanotechnology-modified solar cells is represented in the following subsections.
Alternative Energy: Photovoltaic Solar Cells
Published in Brian D. Fath, Sven E. Jørgensen, Megan Cole, Managing Air Quality and Energy Systems, 2020
Pure silicon is produced from sand (silicon dioxide—SiO2) by reduction at carbon electrodes at 1800°C in specially designed furnaces. The final material contains 98%–99% pure silicon. The complete reaction is: SiO2+C→Si+CO2.
Analysis of heat conduction in a nanoscale metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor using lattice Boltzmann method
Published in Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization, and Environmental Effects, 2023
Oussama Zobiri, Abdelmalek Atia, Müslüm Arıcı
The necessity of faster data processing, such as data transmission and data storage has been realized in recent years. During the data transmission by electrons to electronics, circuits may lead to unwanted hotspots (Chen 2005). The most commonly used materials in electronic industries are semiconductor materials. Among them, silicon (Si) is the dominating semiconductor material utilized for microelectronics devices (Nasri et al. 2015b). The Field-Effect Transistor (FET) is the essential component of semiconductor. The most popular type of isolated gate FET used in a variety of microelectronic is the Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor (MOSFET). Hundreds of millions of semiconductors are assembled on a few square centimeters chip area (Pop, Sinha, and Goodson 2006). The channel region in the MOSFET was projected to be 13 nm in 2018, however, the miniaturization of MOSFET has already reached the nano-scale, and it is expected to be less than 6 nm in 2026 (Fiori et al. 2014).
Future of photovoltaic materials with emphasis on resource availability, economic geology, criticality, and market size/growth
Published in CIM Journal, 2023
G. J. Simandl, S. Paradis, L. Simandl
Silicon is a nonmetallic element in Group 14 (carbon family) of the periodic table with atomic number 14. It is the second most abundant element in the earth’s crust by weight (31.14%) after oxygen (Rudnick & Gao, 2014). It can be found in a wide variety of minerals and elemental compounds. Silicon dioxide (SiO2) or silica is one of the most common compounds, forming all quartz polymorphs and varieties, agate, opal, and chert. Quartz is one of the main rock-forming minerals and the main constituent in high-purity sand, sandstone, and quartzite. It is commonly the main constituent of cores of pegmatites and mineralized or barren hydrothermal veins. Silica materials are available on all continents and satisfactory for most common applications, including ferrosilicon and metallurgical-grade silicon (MG-Si). However, in most cases, the silica content of these rocks is too low and the impurities content is too high for direct transformation to solar- or electronic-grade Si.
Enhancing neutron radiation resistance of silicon-based semiconductor devices through isotope separation and enrichment
Published in Radiation Effects and Defects in Solids, 2021
Ying Bai, Zeng-Hua Cai, Yu-Ning Wu, Shiyou Chen
We demonstrate our approach based on the silicon isotopes. Silicon is the most commonly used element in semiconductor devices. The natural form of silicon contains three stable isotopes, including 92.223% of 28Si, 4.685% of 29Si and 3.092% of 30Si. In this paper, we calculate the radiation damage function of these three isotopes under intermediate neutron and fast neutron radiations based on the Neutron Nuclear Reaction Evaluation Database (ENDF/B-VIII.0) (36). Their values of displacement per atom (DPA) in the 235U neutron fission spectrum (representing the environment of nuclear accident) as well as the cosmic space neutron spectrum are also calculated. Our results show that 30Si has the best resistance against the intermediate and fast neutron radiations compared with the other two isotopes and natural silicon. The DPA values of 30Si are the lowest under both neutron radiations, and they are at least about 10–15% lower than those of natural silicon. Furthermore, based on the existing technologies of separation and enrichment of silicon isotopes (37–43), we propose to use silicon with highly enriched 30Si in fabrication of semiconductor devices to elevate their resistance against the intermediate and fast neutron radiations. This will effectively extend the service life of semiconductor devices under neutron radiations.