Inexpensive, high-efficiency solar cells

要减缓气候变化，就必须生产充足和可持续的能源。 太阳能衍生的可再生能源是普遍可用的，因此，一旦它具有成本竞争力，就有很大的潜力减少气候变化。为了实现与电网的成本平价（约0.04美元/千瓦时），需要降低光伏（PV）价格并提高效率。目前最先进的PV技术无法实现成本平价，因为它们要么制造成本低廉但捕获太阳能效率低下，要么效率很高但制造成本昂贵。生产电网平价能源将引发巨大的经济增长;然而，为了利用这一增长，我们的加拿大工业合作伙伴，与占主导地位的世界参与者，特别是日本，德国和中国竞争，需要利用创新技术，如本提案中所述。 为了克服这种成本平价瓶颈，PIand的合作者（Hong Guo教授和Kirk Bevan教授）提出开发一种新的半导体制造方法，即金属催化横向生长，以实现廉价且高效的第三代PV。在过去的14年里，PI一直致力于高质量材料集成，最近在非晶（SiO2）和晶格失配衬底上生长了高质量的半导体纳米线（Si和Ge）。他现在想将这项技术扩展到微观尺度之外，以低廉的价格覆盖大面积。该计划将在廉价的衬底上生产高质量和高效率的半导体，这将通过选择性的金属催化生长为第三代PV奠定坚实的基础，在此基础上，可以在未来几年内建造栅极平价PV。高素质的人员分配到这个程序将获得宝贵的和广泛的经验，在PV，材料生长，材料表征，器件制造和器件表征。虽然本提案中描述的研究将针对开发第三代PV，但该技术也可以更广泛地使用，并影响许多其他应用，包括大面积电子，计算机处理器和电信。

Abundant and sustainable energy production is required to mitigate climate change. Solar-derived, renewable energy is universally available and therefore has great potential to reduce climate change once it becomes cost-competitive. To achieve cost parity with the electric grid, at ~$0.04/kWh, both decreased photovoltaic (PV) price and increased efficiency are needed. Current state-of-the-art PV technologies fail to achieve cost parity because they are either inexpensive to fabricate but inefficient at capturing solar energy, or highly efficient but expensive to fabricate. Producing grid-parity energy will trigger enormous economic growth; however, in order to capitalize on this growth our Canadian industry partners, competing with dominant world players, especially in Japan, Germany and China, need to leverage innovative technologies such as that described in this proposal. To overcome this cost parity bottleneck, the PIand collaborators (Prof. Hong Guo and Prof. Kirk Bevan) propose to develop a novel semiconductor fabrication method, metal-catalyzed lateral growth, to enable third-generation PVs that are both inexpensive and highly efficient. Having worked in high-quality materials integration for the last 14 years, the PI has recently grown high-quality, semiconductor nanowires (Si and Ge) on amorphous (SiO2) and lattice-mismatched substrates. He now wants to expand this technology beyond the micro-scale to inexpensively cover large areas. This program will produce high-quality and high-efficiency semiconductors on inexpensive substrates that will build a sturdy foundation for third-generation PVs through selective, metal-catalyzed growth upon which grid-parityPVs can be built within the next few years. The high-quality personnel assigned to this program will gain valuable and broad experience in PVs, materials growth, materials characterization, device fabrication and device characterization. While the research described in this proposal will be directed at developing third-generation PVs, this technology could also be used more broadly and impact many other applications including large area electronics, computer processors, and telecommunications.