The biggest challenge of the 21st century is meeting the growing needs of energy (power) for the development of a sustainable society. With decreasing reserves of fossil fuels and risks associated with nuclear power, importance is being given for renewable energy resources, solar in particular. Solar radiation reaching the earth's surface is clean, in abundance and free of cost. A photovoltaic solar cell working at moderate efficiency can easily meet all the power needs. Three generations of solar cells are under development. Solar cells made of Si have already made a big impact, used as a crystalline wafer (1st generation) or as polycrystalline films (2nd generation). 3rd Generation solar cells involve several innovative designs, drawing on our ability to grow organized structures on a nanometric scale with full control of structural and morphological properties.
In this tutorial workshop, in a series of lectures, we will review the design and operating principles of these three generations of solar cells. In addition, we shall present an overview of the state-of-art in the scaling and commercialization of these solar cells. The lectures will be supplemented by brief hands-on sessions with simple do-it-yourself experiments on the fabrication of these solar cells and their use in powering portable electronics such as mobile phones and LED lights.