This project was done the summer of 2018 while I worked for Professor David Tannenbaum at Pomona College. The premise of the project was to design and build a system to map the photovoltaic response of solar cells based on laser beam induced current (LBIC). The mapping can be used to analyze active areas, defects, inactive regions, and coating errors to inform on how to improve the production of solar cells and provide images and data on overall photovoltaic response.
First I converted laser engraver to low-power scanning laser to scan solar cells and collect photovoltaic response. This data was then collected in CSV files to be mapped into images of photovoltaic active areas of a solar cell. The mapping was done through a MatLab program I designed to extract data the data from the CSV and produce an image.
The following are a few of the scans produced using the LBIC mapping system.
