This book covers the basic scientific background of solar cells, their principles, working, growth, operating parameters, commercialization status, manufacturing challenges, and future scope of solar cells. Topics covered range from history and developments of solar cell generation to market growth and different applications of solar cells including in depth knowledge about Si, PSCs, and next generation multilayer bandgap based solar cells and their fabrication techniques with advanced methodology.

Key features:

• Explains solar cells and their growth at different stages
• Discusses challenges in the fabrication/commercialization of solar cells at the lab and industry levels
• Combines fundamental, experimental, and theoretical knowledge with industrial needs and engineering design methods
• Covers the new generation of perovskite solar cells and their synthesis techniques
• Explores multilayer graded bandgap solar cells and their importance in existing solar technology

This book is specifically designed for graduate students and researchers in solar energy technology, cell device, and materials science.

Shivani Dhall has been working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics at D.A.V. College, Jalandhar, since July 2018. Previously, she worked as a National Postdoctoral Fellow (NPDF) in the Department of Physics at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in New Delhi. During her Ph.D., she worked at the Centre of Excellence in Nanoelectronics (CEN), Electrical Department, IIT Bombay. She received the Best INUP Project Award from IIT Bombay in 2015. In 2018, she was awarded the CSIR Nehru and DS Kothari Fellowships. In 2019, she received a TARE project under the DST to continue her research work. In 2024, she received another project for UGC-DAE, CSR on carbon-based gas sensors. She is focusing on carbon materials, nanoparticles, and their device fabrication using lithography techniques for gas sensing, photo-sensing, Si/CNTs-based solar cells, and interconnected applications. She serves as a reviewer for many SCI journals and has 28 publications in SCI journals.

Kapil Sood has been working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics at Government Degree College Dhaliara, Distt. Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, India. After receiving his Ph.D. in the School of Physics and Materials Science from Thapar University, Patiala, Punjab, in 2014, he worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (2014-2018). He also worked as a visiting researcher with Professor Truls Norby in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Oslo, Norway. He has published many papers in various journals of international repute. His main research areas are renewable energy sources, electrochemical energy devices, solid electrolytes, and SOFCs.

Vinay Gupta is an Indian materials scientist and a former senior scientist at the Physics of Energy Harvesting department of the National Physical Laboratory of India. Known for his studies on organic solar cells, carbon nanotube arrays, and Förster resonance energy transfer, Gupta is a former Alexander von Humboldt Fellow. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to Physical sciences in 2017. He works in the Department of Physics, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi, UAE.