An Affordable Instrumentation for Light Beam Induced Current Measurement of Solar Cells
Disciplines
Electrical and Electronics
Abstract (300 words maximum)
Solar cells are used to convert sunlight into usable energy. However, during or after solar cells are manufactured, they often contain many defects. These defects reduce the power output of the solar cell. Therefore, inspection and measurements must be carried out to sort the good quality cells and discard the poor-quality cells which contain defects beyond permissible limits. Such defect identification is also important for research and development of solar cells. In this project, we have built a 3D-printer based system to scan solar cells using laser light. The solar cell is placed on the movable base of the 3D-printer, which is programmed to move in a raster pattern. As the base moves, the laser spot moves over the solar cell and generates a small current, which is then converted to voltage using a transimpedance amplifier and recorded using an analog-to-digital converter. The device was built by first stripping apart a commercially available 3D printer and then modifying its electronic circuitry to gain control over its operation and retrofitting our own circuit consisting of a microcontroller, laser driver, motor driver, and a power supply. The microcomputer controls the stage of the 3D-printer, the laser diode, and reads the output current/voltage data. To control the device and perform the experiment, a graphical user interface (GUI) was built. After the solar cell is fully scanned, the desktop-based GUI program constructs a picture of the cell using the current/voltage data that displays the quality of the scanned cell. Our research can lead to affordable LBIC instrumentation and can help improve solar cell technology.
Academic department under which the project should be listed
SPCEET - Electrical and Computer Engineering
Primary Investigator (PI) Name
Sandip Das
An Affordable Instrumentation for Light Beam Induced Current Measurement of Solar Cells
Solar cells are used to convert sunlight into usable energy. However, during or after solar cells are manufactured, they often contain many defects. These defects reduce the power output of the solar cell. Therefore, inspection and measurements must be carried out to sort the good quality cells and discard the poor-quality cells which contain defects beyond permissible limits. Such defect identification is also important for research and development of solar cells. In this project, we have built a 3D-printer based system to scan solar cells using laser light. The solar cell is placed on the movable base of the 3D-printer, which is programmed to move in a raster pattern. As the base moves, the laser spot moves over the solar cell and generates a small current, which is then converted to voltage using a transimpedance amplifier and recorded using an analog-to-digital converter. The device was built by first stripping apart a commercially available 3D printer and then modifying its electronic circuitry to gain control over its operation and retrofitting our own circuit consisting of a microcontroller, laser driver, motor driver, and a power supply. The microcomputer controls the stage of the 3D-printer, the laser diode, and reads the output current/voltage data. To control the device and perform the experiment, a graphical user interface (GUI) was built. After the solar cell is fully scanned, the desktop-based GUI program constructs a picture of the cell using the current/voltage data that displays the quality of the scanned cell. Our research can lead to affordable LBIC instrumentation and can help improve solar cell technology.