Finally : cheap DIY selfmade solar cell with common materials !

[Doug1]

Silicon might not be the best material to begin with. It is the most popular because  they have spent more time tweeking that one material. It being the most difficult to grow as a single crystal wafer to obtain a higher level of purity has been the solar industries focus.
  The properties of silicone which lead to a reaction favorable to convert light are more important then the silicone itself. High output cells verses low output cells and why.
   I picture there being a 1-2-3 process. High wide dirty light vibration in ,then means to filter vibration to enable to separate layers one diamagnetic one magnetic both translucent and thin and able to become polarized with the electrodes stuck on the outsides. One has to allow some light to pass through the top all the way to back side electrode. Some classes of material dissolve in an alkali some in acids the dye is the filter that knocks the vibration back to a cleaner rate of vibration on the back side compared to the chaotic rate on the front side thereby creating a potential difference front to back. If you cant make a pure crystal and cut into a wafer maybe there is a way to bias a bunch of tiny particles by introducing a range of vibrations to a thin layer of random crystal layer to cancel out part of the light spectrum as it passes to the back electrode. A choke of sorts, but more in line with the way sound canceling works. Does a typical solar cell show that proximity to high frequency disturbances effects the output? I dont have a signal generator maybe just a speaker and win amp will suffice and a cheap solar powered calculator.
  If so then you can use any opposite materials that will satisfy the other requirements of being translucent conductive and either more P or N in nature. If an outside range of frequency will F up a cell maybe the right one will improve it or open up the door to a number of better easier materials that are free.
  As far as giving power back to the grid they can kiss my butt.I would rather send the extra to ground and fry worms or power a foam finger with the extended finger moved to the position of the middle finger tied to a motor to wave at the utility company trucks when they drive by.
   Im thinking zirconium

[capthook]

Silicon might not be the best material to begin with. It is the most popular because  they have spent more time tweeking that one material. It being the most difficult to grow as a single crystal wafer to obtain a higher level of purity has been the solar industries focus.
  The properties of silicone which lead to a reaction favorable to convert light are more important then the silicone itself. High output cells verses low output cells and why.
 

Silicon is the best material to date for a number of reasons.
It is easily doped with boron (p) and phosphorous (n) that results in very loosely held electrons due to the structure of silicon.  The energy required to "knock loose" these electrons is almost exactly the energy of a photon.
Different materials are less efficient in they require more energy and/or can utilize only a small spectrum of light to "knock loose" the electrons.

Mono-crystalline silicon is the most efficient and hardest to grow and most expensive.
All the 'grains' are alligned, giving an easy path for the electrons to flow.
-> -> -> ->

Poly-crystalline is a bit more disordered and thus less efficient but cheaper and easier to grow.
->   ->
  ->      ->

Amorphous is total disorder and much less efficient but much easier to produce.
-> ^  <- ^  -> ^
   /        \      |

The primary consideration of new materials is how well the doped electron bonds are matched to the energy of a photon.

[infringer]

Yes mono seems to be rather nice bot oddly enough manufacturing is making a shift to gretzel cells discussed in this thread because they can be made at a very low cost...

Anyhow I'm glad you brought that up capthook while no one can say weather silicon is the best solution it seems to be at the time but things tend to change drastically and quickly in the renewable energy field.

But I say we follow the course I have some time to go but I will kick off possibly next weekend depending I still need to do some studies with the panel I have made...
More so with the electronics I noticed it was putting out just over 19v peak early morning so high noon it may be more I need to learn ...

My main hurdle now is how to keep a continued voltage of 12v  and regulate it so that the voltage stays the same and either gains current or drops current stepping up and down the voltage automatically...

Just a lot of projects going on currently:
1. Testing my current panel learning how to regulate voltage which should be fairly basic maybe a simple zenner diode would do the trick...
2. Setting up all my PC's to sleep and respond to the WOL packet or WOLWOW packet... so when I wanna transfer files over the network I can wake them then let them fall back into sleep.
3. Setting up Active Home Pro from x10.com so that I can control my power outlets and lights on a timer, remote, or motion sensor.
4. Installing digital programmable thermostat.
5. Working on a camaro top half of the engine.
6. Making a larger solar panel with 3x6 cells still need some materials with that.
7. A full time job that sucks most of my time and life out of me...
8. Then finally yes finally I can do some testing with DIY solar so I am a ways out indeed but I now finally have all of the items required I believe to make a gretzel cell...

Just as a kicker the rest of you should look into home automation all of your devices that remain in a standby state you would be supprised on how much cash you can save on your power bill and still have the same ease of usage it will pay for itself within a year is my estimate and that is probably being less generous then I should be...

Anyhow I will keep tabs on this until I have time to further test. Thanks again for your contributions this is a great thread do not let it fizzel out this is what solar is migrating to this same very cell there is a good reason for it low cost production and decent efficiency ...

Enjoy,

PS please someone help Stephan out with is water soluable silicon salt issue he is making excellent effort and progress!

[mdmiller]

if you are interested in a simple cell fabrication process, I've found this link a good read:

Paint solar cell and its fabrication
http://www.google.com/patents?id=4ZQRAAAAEBAJ&dq=6689950

to summarize, it describes an n-doped yellow paint applied over a thin aluminum sheet which functions as the back electrode with a p-doped black paint over it, and a colloidal silver-in-resin front electrode.

for the black paint the recommended pigment/doping is copper sulfide and the yellow paint pigment is cadium tin oxide.

for it's utter simplicity the patent is lengthy and you'll need to get to page 9 for a better description of the components.

I have some copper sulfate, not sure if I can easily turn it into copper sulfide.

good luck - Duane

[Doug1]

Paint pigments in general provides a possible avenue for applying materials. It's amazing what pigments are made from and the carriers of the pigments for different types of coatings. From a historical point some pigments are actually pretty cool. There was once some mention of carbon black. I think shoe polish is made from from carbon black in a wax and oil carrier which be something that can be burned off and combined with a very diluted polymer as a binder.
    The patent mentioned in one of the posts the uses a capacitor material as one of the features of the design was a great bummer. Thought I had thought of that first. Regarding pigment materials they do filter out certain wave lengths by reflecting the wavelength which represents the color and absorbing the rest of the wavelengths which result in heat build up in the coating. The carriers have to be super thin and the pigments well dispersed. To much pigment will prevent light from reaching very far into the layer.
   Good thing because some of these materials are expensive. Titatium powder is over 100. us per lbs
Considering how thin it would have be to be transparent a 1lb would last a life time once oxidized.
  Ever see how they would lift finger prints off an item on the old CSI TV series. They put crazy glue in a box or bag in a container and a small source of fire like a candle or burning paper and the smoke would stick to the finger print. Not sure but I think the vapor from the glue drying caused the smoke to stick to the finger print. Maybe something like that can put to use on this if the finite materials are mixed in with the burning of something in the presence of crazy glue vapors.