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Image Capture, Processing and Analysis of Solar Cells for Engineering Education
Conference proceeding   Open access

Image Capture, Processing and Analysis of Solar Cells for Engineering Education

Michael Mauk and Richard Chiou
Association for Engineering Education - Engineering Library Division Papers, p26.883.1
14 Jun 2015
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18260/p.24220
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https://doi.org/10.18260/p.24220View
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Abstract

Crystal defects Crystallography Electroluminescence Engineering education Freeware Grain structure Image processing Infrared cameras Machine vision Mapping Material properties Photoconductivity Photoluminescence Photovoltaic cells Photovoltaic effect Process controls Quality assurance Semiconductor devices Solar cells Spatial resolution Surface layers Thin films
If present trends hold, the world may well be on the verge of the “SolarAge”, where photovoltaics will make a substantial (> 20%) contributionto our total electrical energy needs. Photovoltaic materials, devices,and systems should therefore be prominent in engineering education.In addition, solar cells are very informative specimens for teachingimage capture, processing, and analysis as means for studying materialsscience, semiconductor devices, optics, thin-film technology,manufacturing automation, machine vision, quality assurance, andstatistical process control. For example, imaging a solar cell withvisible and infrared cameras can reveal its grain structure (grain sizeand texture), crystallographic defects, surface reflectivity androughness, surface contamination, and manufacturing flaws (e.g.,broken grid lines or chips). As a further example, laser scanning withimage mapping provides spatial resolution of performance-limitingfeatures and effects for solar cell diagnostics. Solar cells are made in avariety of materials and configurations, and generally exhibit a widerange of optical, electrical, and thermal phenomena including inaddition to the photovoltaic effect, photoluminescence,electroluminescence, photoconductivity, and light trapping. Theoperation of a solar cell, as well as many phenomena revealed byimaging, are sensitive to material quality, and thus solar cells are good“probes” of material properties. High resolution visible and infrared(thermal) cameras are now available at low cost. Solar cells are cheapand readily available. Powerful image processing software comes withMATLAB or freeware (ImageJ). Most of the experiments can bedone on a desktop or lab bench. Thus, these experiments and projectsmake only modest demands on school resources. Here we describeand discuss solar cell imaging as accessible, highly instructive, easy-to-implement case studies for teaching and integrating a variety ofincreasingly important engineering and science disciplines.

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