The final part of this course serves as a wrap-up. We will look at all the concepts given in the course so far and find out how they result in electrical losses.

By now you are familiar with how the solar cell works and how to get most of the light into a solar cell and excite electrons in it. Now it is necessary to understand how to deal with the photo-generated electrons and to understand what aspects of a solar cell can reduce its electrical performance in terms of voltage and current that the solar cell can deliver. We will explore some engineering tricks that can be used to reduce these losses

Finally we will discuss a fundamental limit to the performance of solar cells, known as the Shockley-Queisser limit,  and a number of advanced novel concepts that are being explored to go beyond this limit.

This last week will give you the tools needed as a photovoltaic expert to properly design and engineer solar cells.