Making Photovoltaic Solar Cells with a Microwave

Although solar panels may seem like a kind of magic, they’re really quite simple devices, in their silicon form featuring nothing but the p-type silicon wafer and an n-type layer …. Making Photovoltaic Solar Cells with a Microwave. Because of this simplicity it’s quite possible to make your own solar cells at home using only a few basic, off-the-shelf ingredients and a kiln, which in this recent video by [Dr.

Semiconductor] uses a microwave kiln and thus justifies the video’s title. Even the silicon wafer that you start with can be easily purchased online, though you have to be careful that it’s a bare wafer, without existing etchings on it. On this you need to get a phosphorus-rich layer, which is done by creating a delicious mixture of 1 mL of tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS), 0.3 mL of 85 wt% phosphoric acid, 5 mL of ethanol and 0.25 mL of distilled water.

After low heat boiling this for 30 minutes, it is spincoated onto the cut square of silicon wafer using a spinning platform, like a PC fan. Next, you shove the coated silicon into the kiln and put it into the microwave to bake at a fairly low power level for half an hour. In the video it took less than 50% power of the microwave to not melt the silicon, so remember that those microwave kilns get pretty hot.