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“How Solar Panels/Cells Work”

Solar panels are made of thousands of solar cells and are used to use lightand heat energy from the sun. These solar cells/panels can use the energy theyhave absorbed from the sun’s rays and use it to power most of the machines weuse that use fossil fuels to power them. The purpose of the solar panels/cells isthat we can get as much energy as we need to power our machines, homes, andtools we use in are everyday life, it is also a way to get free energy we don’thave to compete with other nations for, and we could have on energy source thatwouldn’t hurt our own atmosphere and destroy our environment. The only problem with solar panels is that they can’t pick up a lot of the solar energy thatshines though earth.

How Solar Panels/Cells are made.

Solar panels are nothing more than modules of solar cells or photovoltaiccells. These cells are made of different layers of material that help the cells perform their function. There are six different layers on the Photovoltaic Cell.They are the

N-type (negative) silicon, P-type (positive) silicon, the back contact, thefront contact grid, the anti-reflective covering, and the glass cover.

The silicon is in its crystalline form which is created when a silicon atomlinks with other silicon atoms. This is important for the PV Cell. The silicon hasto be modified a bit to work as a solar cell because silicon is a poor conductor.The silicon in the solar cells is doped (adding impurities on purpose) with phosphorous atoms so it has impurities in it that change the way the siliconworks and cause the silicon to help the PV cell. The phosphorous atoms in thesilicon give the silicon a negative charge because the phosphorous atom has oneextra electron with is released when the phosphorous atom links with the siliconatoms. The extra electrons take less energy to knock the electrons from their

atoms since they aren’t linked with any neighbors which causes the electrons tofreely move around the silicon. This is how the

N-type silicon

is created.The

P-type silicon

follows the same process as the

N-type silicon

, but insteadof being doped with phosphorous atoms the silicon is doped with boron atomswhich only have one less electron than the silicon atoms. This causes the siliconto have free holes with instead of having a negative charge they have a positivecharge. This shows how the

P-type silicon

is created.The N-type and P-type silicones are merged or placed together. When thisoccurs an electric field forms in between the two silicones without this electricfield the solar cell is useless. The electric field happens because the freeelectrons in the N-type silicon will try to find the free holes which are in the P-type silicon. The electrons will jump from the N-type silicon to the P-typesilicon which creates a spark of electricity and the electric field.The front and back contacts of the solar cell keep the two silicones together so the electric field will keep on working. The anti-reflective coating allows thesunlight to be absorbed by the solar cell which helps the electric field by causing