Solar Cell 101 took place at the solar Power Lab, from January 10-13. It brought together QESST students from different Universities, as well as Industry partners, to learn about the process of making a solar cell. Each participant got the opportunity to take a QESST logo module, with some of them reaching 17.6% efficiency, with just less than 35 mA/cm2 of short circuit current.  As Som Dahal explains, part of the reason on low Jsc is the shadowing of QESST logo and quite wide fingers (~100 um). He mentions that it”s common for the Solar Power Lab to get by 60 um fingers and obtain 36+ mA/cm2 of short circuit current.

As an extra treat for the event, Adrienne Blum, from Sinton Instruments, gave a great and informative talk about characterization. The laboratory for ASU’s Solar Power Lab is a 4976 square foot state-of-the-art clean room with extensive handling for high purity gases and sophisticated semiconductor process equipment. Solar Cell 101 workshop is offered throughout the year – if you are interested in applying for future workshops email Michelle Jordan.