What are monocrystalline, polycrystalline and thin-film solar arrays?
There are three types of cells: monocrystalline, polycrystalline and amorphous cells. For the manufacture of monocrystalline silicon cells ultra-pure semiconductor material is used. Out of a silicon melt, monocrystalline rods are drawn and subsequently sawn into thin slices. This process ensures relatively high cell efficiency but does not tell you much about the resulting efficiency of a module. Originally all monocrystalline material came from chip production. More cost-effective is the use of polycrystalline cells. This process involves casting liquid silicon into blocks which are subsequently sawn into slices. During solidification of the material different sizes of crystalline structures are formed at the edges at which defects occur. Such defects lower the efficiency of the solar cell. However, this degradation can often be compensated in the module since – unlike the monocrystalline material – rectangular cells are produced resulting in better utilization of the area available f
