New solar cell manufacturing technology at University of Delaware

The new system enables a more efficient manufacturing process for flexible solar cells, forming long sheets by using roll-to-roll reactors, thus allowing “extremely high production throughputs and reducing manufacturing costs”, according to Mr Erten Eser, an Associate Scientist at IEC.

With this new technique, it is possible to create lightweight and flexible solar cell panels that could be used in the space, military and recreational markets and easily integrated stuck to different surfaces.

According to an IEC's press release, the solar cell sheets are created by depositing copper-indium-gallium-diselinide (CIGS) on a 10-inch wide polymer web, which is then processed into the flexible solar cells. These cells are the only thin-film technology that has achieved efficiencies comparable to silicon solar cells so far.

IEC is at the moment working with other organizations to commercialize the technology as the Institute does not have the facilities to process the web into modules yet.  

Mr Eser also said that IEC researchers started developing flexible CIGS in 1995 funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, from America's Department of Defense. “When the program ended around 2004, we had learned a lot but could not produce the breakthroughs the program envisioned for solar cells on a plastic substrate”, he added. Research was continued with other sources of funding, until having reached this successful point in which CIGS can be made of "10-inches in width and 50 feet in length, and efficiencies around 10 percent”, he concluded.

For additional information:

www.udel.edu