Preface

This book is about a new class of materials being developed for solar energy applications. It provides information on the fundamental scientific principles underlying these materials as well as how they are used in technological applications. Future social demands are heavily reliant on cheap and plentiful energy sources. Nonrenewable resources such as oil, coal, and natural gas provide a large portion of the world's energy needs, contributing to global warming and negatively affecting our environment. There is a pressing and rapidly growing necessity for eco-sustainable and renewable energy technologies that are CO2 neutral. The photoelectric conversion of clean and abundant solar energy can successfully address this. Solar energy is the best solution for electricity production in rural and isolated areas due to the ability to generate electricity in situ by small (even individual) production plants, the low environmental impact of zero carbon dioxide generation, and the ease of building integration. This book outlines and discusses the best researchcell efficiencies. It also presents the state of the art of the greatest proven conversion efficiencies for research cells for a variety of solar technologies. This book covers the theory of solar cells, thin-film technologies, crystalline silicone cells, and developing photovoltaics as well as recent breakthroughs in these fields. For understanding and studying device physics, this volume uses both analytical and numerical evaluations of solar cell architectures. The appendices contain many of the details of the analytical investigations so that the growth of concepts is not hampered by the creation of equations. The book also presents the theory of solar cells, which involves light energy in photons being converted into electric current when photons strike an appropriate semiconductor device. Theoretical studies are useful because they forecast the fundamental limits of a solar cell and direct the processes that lead to solar-cell losses and efficiency.

A thin-film solar cell is a second-generation solar cell manufactured by depositing one or more thin layers or thin films (TFs) of photovoltaic material on a substrate such as glass, plastic, or metal. Cadmium telluride (CdTe), copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS), and amorphous thin-film silicon are all commercially available thin-film solar cells (a-Si, TF-Si). The book will appeal to a broad audience and will encourage researchers, engineers, and postgraduate students to advocate for photovoltaic device technology. The goal of the book is to provide the reader with the necessary foundations to keep up with and contribute to the development of this exciting topic.

> **Ahmed Mourtada Elseman** Electronic and Magnetic Materials Department, Central Metallurgical Research and Development Institute (CMRDI), Cairo, Egypt

**1**

Section 1

Theory of Solar Cells
