Flexible solar cells based on foldable silicon wafers with blunted edges

Wenzhu Liu(Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology), Yujing Liu(Changsha University of Science and Technology), Ziqiang Yang(King Abdullah University of Science and Technology), Chang‐Qing Xu(King Abdullah University of Science and Technology), Xiaodong Li(Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology), Shenglei Huang(ShanghaiTech University), Jianhua Shi(Beijing Solar Energy Research Institute), Junling Du(Beijing Solar Energy Research Institute), Anjun Han(Beijing Solar Energy Research Institute), Yuhao Yang(Chinese Academy of Sciences), Guoning Xu(Chinese Academy of Sciences), Jian Yu(Southwest Petroleum University), Jiajia Ling, Jun Peng(Soochow University), Liping Yu(Beihang University), Bin Ding(Beihang University), Yuan Gao(Beihang University), Kai Jiang(Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology), Zhenfei Li(Chinese Academy of Sciences), Yanchu Yang(Chinese Academy of Sciences), Zhaojie Li(Chinese Academy of Sciences), Shihu Lan(Beijing Solar Energy Research Institute), Haoxin Fu(Beijing Solar Energy Research Institute), Bin Fan(Beijing Solar Energy Research Institute), Yanyan Fu(State Key Laboratory of Transducer Technology), Wei He(Chinese Academy of Sciences), Fengrong Li(Chinese Academy of Sciences), Xin Song(Changzhou University), Yinuo Zhou(Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology), Qiang Shi(Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology), Guangyuan Wang(Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology), Lan Guo(ShanghaiTech University), Jingxuan Kang(Paul Drude Institute for Solid State Electronics), Xinbo Yang(Soochow University), Dongdong Li(Chinese Academy of Sciences), Zhechao Wang(Polar Research Institute of China), Jie Li(Polar Research Institute of China), S. T. Thoroddsen(King Abdullah University of Science and Technology), Rong Cai(Chinese Academy of Sciences), Fuhai Wei(Polar Research Institute of China), Guoqiang Xing(Beijing Solar Energy Research Institute), Yaqin Xie(Beijing Solar Energy Research Institute), X.C. Liu(Changsha University of Science and Technology), Liping Zhang(Beijing Solar Energy Research Institute), Fanying Meng(Beijing Solar Energy Research Institute), Zengfeng Di(Chinese Academy of Sciences), Zhengxin Liu(Beijing Solar Energy Research Institute)
Nature
May 24, 2023
10.1038/s41586-023-05921-z
Cited by 253Open Access
Full Text

Abstract

Abstract Flexible solar cells have a lot of market potential for application in photovoltaics integrated into buildings and wearable electronics because they are lightweight, shockproof and self-powered. Silicon solar cells have been successfully used in large power plants. However, despite the efforts made for more than 50 years, there has been no notable progress in the development of flexible silicon solar cells because of their rigidity 1–4 . Here we provide a strategy for fabricating large-scale, foldable silicon wafers and manufacturing flexible solar cells. A textured crystalline silicon wafer always starts to crack at the sharp channels between surface pyramids in the marginal region of the wafer. This fact enabled us to improve the flexibility of silicon wafers by blunting the pyramidal structure in the marginal regions. This edge-blunting technique enables commercial production of large-scale (>240 cm 2 ), high-efficiency (>24%) silicon solar cells that can be rolled similarly to a sheet of paper. The cells retain 100% of their power conversion efficiency after 1,000 side-to-side bending cycles. After being assembled into large (>10,000 cm 2 ) flexible modules, these cells retain 99.62% of their power after thermal cycling between −70 °C and 85 °C for 120 h. Furthermore, they retain 96.03% of their power after 20 min of exposure to air flow when attached to a soft gasbag, which models wind blowing during a violent storm.

Related Papers

No related papers found

Powered by citation graph analysis