Solar Power Lab is engaged in research activities on different aspects of Photovoltaics.
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Solar Power Lab at ASU is the only University PV research lab in US with industrial capability.
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In the Solar Power Lab, we work with academic and industrial partners across the U.S. and around the globe
Posted: Monday, November 17, 2014 - 15:26
Its time one again for the annual SPL/QESST thanksgiving feast. This year we will be frying up four turkeys and serving them to the hungry hordes. If you are associated with QESST or SPL you should have an email invitation.
The lunch will be held in the courtyard at the Solar Power Lab @ MTW on Wednesday, November 19th, 2014 at Noon.
Bring food if you like but we have four turkeys so no one will go hungry.
Posted: Thursday, November 13, 2014 - 06:34
An overview of the current global solar market, and technology innovations that may enable more economically compelling solutions
Dr. Michael Woodhouse
Strategic Energy Analysis Center
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Thursday, November 13, 2014 @ 3:30 p.m.
Wrigley Hall, room 481
Posted: Wednesday, October 15, 2014 - 15:48
IEEE Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology Society
Phoenix Chapter
Wednesday, October 15th, 2014 at 5:30 PM
Seminar: Present and Future of Photovoltaics
Dr. Stuart Bowden
Director of Solar Power Laboratory
School of Electrical, Computing and Energy Engineering
Arizona State University
Tempe, Arizona
ABSTRACT
The photovoltaic industry has grown at over 30% per annum for the last two decades with present sales of $100 billion per year. As a quantum energy converter, photovoltaics has the potential to revolutionize electricity production in much the same way that solid state physics has changed industries from computing and lighting. The presentation will discuss the present state of the photovoltaic industry and why crystalline silicon continues to be the dominant technology in solar cell production. This presentation will cover all aspects of production in crystalline silicon from the present and into the future. We will delve into device physics of silicon solar cells and how the limitations in present devices can be overcome for both higher efficiency and higher throughput. The various aspects of production will also be covered: from crystallization to wafering, through cell production and finishing with module design and testing.
Posted: Saturday, August 30, 2014 - 11:57
Carrie Culp could have been a statistic: single mother of three, high school diploma, hard-working but hamstrung by a lack of education, hanging onto the lower rungs of the financial ladder.
She could have been a statistic, but it isn’t in her nature.
“I always liked a puzzle,” she said. “I liked to put things together, to figure out how to make things work.”
Posted: Thursday, August 28, 2014 - 11:57
Two Solar Power Lab students just completed their internship with Applied Materials over the summer. Tim Reblitz and Abhishek Kumar are pictured with James Gee (Chief Scientist, Applied Materials). They worked on next generation photovoltaic technologies at the Applied Materials Silicon Valley office in San Jose, California.
Abhishek is completing his masters in Industrial Engineering and Tim is in his third year of the PhD program.
Posted: Thursday, June 26, 2014 - 13:21
At the recent IEEE Photovoltaics Specialist Conference, Jaewon Oh received the best student paper award in the area of Reliability of PV. Jaewon's paper was entitled "Application of Reverse Bias Recovery Technique to Address PID Issue: Incompleteness of shunt resistance and quantum efficiency recovery". Potential induced degradation (PID) has become increasingly important in recent years as modules are used in larger systems and voltages increase.
Jaewon recieves his award from the IEEE
Posted: Sunday, February 9, 2014 - 23:19
We recently started a new program at ASU to work on one of the most challenging problems in photovoltaics. How to grow thin wafers of crystalline silicon directly from the gas phase and then process them into solar cells. The program takes advantage of technology that we recently developed to produce record voltages on crystalline silicon solar cells.
The program is funded by DOE ARPA-E and the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) and involves a collaboration between Applied Materials (lead), Suniva and ASU.
Posted: Wednesday, February 5, 2014 - 22:33
The surfaces of silicon solar cells are highly active and a major loss mechanism unless they are made electrical inactive by passivation of the surface defects. Silicon nitride is commonly used to passivate the front surface of solar cells and gives them their blue color. The positive charge in the nitride lowers the electrical activity at the surface of n-type material by repelling minority carrier holes. Recently we demonstrated a techniue to change the charge in silicon nitride from positive to negative. By flipping the charge we will be able to use silicon nitride to passivate p-type. The whole process is done at low temperature and relies on changing a metastable defect.
Posted: Monday, January 20, 2014 - 20:11
Solar power benefits people across the world. At the solar power lab we focus on the device physics of photovoltaic devices and ways to increase the performance while lowering the cost. We also get out into the community to see how solar power can be used to directly benefi people lives.
Posted: Monday, December 9, 2013 - 18:25
Spring Session B 2014
This course will focus on the science and technology involved in the manufacturing of solar cells and will provide students with an introduction to important manufacturing concepts such as device design, yields, throughput, process optimisation, reliability, in-line quality control and fault diagnosis. In this class, students will learn about: (i) the fabrication processes of the commercially-dominant screen-printed solar cells; (ii) the impact of various processing and device parameters on performance, yields and product reliability; and (iii) in-line, endof-line and failure-analysis quality control techniques, and (iv) trends in commercial cell technology and the corresponding manufacturing processes. Students will be given the opportunity to take control of a "virtual solar cell production line" to adjust the equipment controls and processing parameters to try and optimise performance and maximise virtual production yields. In-line quality control procedures are available to the student to aid in this optimisation and will prove to be particularly useful in identifying and rectifying weaknesses or problems associated with the production.