Photovoltaic cell and methods for manufacture
AssigneeNusola, Inc.
InventorsKoji Matsumaru, Jose Briceno
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A material is manufactured from a single piece of semiconductor material. The material manufactured includes a top layer of a semiconductor compound and a bottom layer of a semiconductor bulk. The material may also have an intrinsic semiconductor layer. The material is created from a transformative process on the single-piece semiconductor material caused by heating a semiconductor material having an impurity under particular conditions. The material manufactured exhibits photovoltaic properties because the layers formed during the transformative process create a p-i-n, a p-n, or an n-n junction having a band-gap difference between the n-type layers.
Claims23
A photovoltaic material comprising:
- a bulk layer of semiconductor material;
- an intermediate layer provided over the bulk layer;
- and
- a top layer provided over the intermediate layer, the top layer comprising a compound semiconductor material,
- whereby the bulk layer, the intermediate layer, and the top layer are created by a transformative process on a single-piece semiconductor material, the single-piece semiconductor material having an impurity.
A method for manufacturing a single-piece photovoltaic, comprising transformative process that is caused by performing the steps of:
- exposing of a top surface of a single-piece semiconductor material to an energy source, whereby the energy source causes heating of a portion of the single-piece semiconductor material;
- and
- ceasing exposure of the top surface of the single-piece semiconductor material to the energy source, whereby the exposing step and the ceasing step cause the single-piece semiconductor material to transform into a structure comprising:
- a bulk layer of semiconductor material;
- an intermediate layer provided over the bulk layer;
- and
- a top layer provided over the intermediate layer, the top layer comprising a compound semiconductor material.
A photovoltaic material comprising:
- a bulk layer of silicon wafer;
- an intermediate layer provided over the bulk layer;
- and
- a top layer provided over the intermediate layer, the top layer comprising a compound semiconductor material, the compound semiconductor material comprising SiC,
- whereby the bulk layer, the intermediate layer, and the top layer are created by a transformative process on a single-piece semiconductor material having a concentration of carbon, the transformative process is caused by performing the steps of:
- exposing of a top surface of the single-piece semiconductor material to an energy source, whereby the energy source causes heating of a portion of the single-piece semiconductor material;
- and
- ceasing exposure of the top surface of the single-piece semiconductor material to the energy source, whereby the exposing step and the ceasing step cause the single-piece semiconductor material to transform into the structure comprising the bulk layer, the intermediate layer, and the top layer comprising SiC.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.