Photovoltaic cells are mainly made of semiconductor materials with photosensitive properties, therefore, semiconductors are the host materials for manufacturing photovoltaic cells.
Semiconductor materials can be divided into two categories: elemental semiconductors and compound semiconductors. At present, it is known that the element semiconductors that can be used to produce photovoltaic cells are silicon (Si) and thread (Ge), and the compound semiconductors are gallium arsenide (GaAs), cadmium sulfide (CdS), CdTe, CuInSe2, etc.
In addition to semiconductor materials, many other materials are used in the manufacture of photovoltaic cells. The most important ones are high-purity hydrogen, oxygen, argon, nitrogen, hydrogen chloride, ultrapure water, silica (quartz glass), graphite, indium, NaOH, KOH, HNO3, HF, POCl3, Al(PO3)3, P2O5, Ti(OC3H7)4, NH3, B2O3, PH3, B2H6, CH4, GeH4, AsH3, (CH3)3Ga, etc.
In addition to the above materials, several chlorosilanes such as trichlorosilane, dichlorodihydrosilane, and silicon tetrachloride are also used in the production of silicon photovoltaic cells, and silane may also be used.
