Silicon

The chemical element silicon is used in solar cells as a semiconductor material, but small amounts of the semimetal are also found in the human body. On earth, it is the second most abundant element after oxygen. To use it for solar cells, the material must first be processed.
To do this, it is first doped, which means contaminated. For photovoltaics, however, this contamination with phosphorus and boron means one thing above all: the conductivity increases. From this perspective, it is more of an upgrading. In a second step, the silicon has to be structured, so to speak, in order to obtain polycrystalline silicon, monocrystalline silicon or amorphous silicon. The latter is needed for the production of wafers.