Engineers develop solar panels to capture light from both sides

By: Inspenet, January 12, 2023. Researchers at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA, also known collectively as the EMPA Institute, with the support of the research team, which includes Ayodhya N. Tiwari, Shih-Chi Yang, and Romain Carron, developed a recent technological advance that can now facilitate the design of double-span or bifacial solar panels.

Inspenet.

Published: January 12, 2023

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By: Inspenet, Jan 12, 2023

Researchers at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA, also known collectively as the EMPA Institute, with the support of the research team, which includes Ayodhya N. Tiwari, Shih-Chi Yang, and Romain Carron, developed a recent technological advance that can now facilitate the design of double-span or bifacial solar panels.

High-efficiency CIGS solar cells are generally manufactured using a high-temperature deposition process. At that temperature, however, a chemical reaction occurs between the gallium (from the CIGS layer) and the oxygen from the transparent back contact. The chemical reaction generates a layer of gallium oxide, this resulting layer blocks the flow of current generated by sunlight and; therefore, it reduces the energy conversion efficiency of the cell. The highest values reached so far in a single cell of this type were: 9.0% on the front face and 7.1% on the back.

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inspenet - 1313_paneles — **Photo** : EMPA. Shih-Chi Yang (left) and Romain Carron

Researchers have developed a new low-temperature deposition process to significantly reduce the amount of harmful gallium oxide produced, and ideally no gallium oxide is generated at all.

Putting the new method into practice, the multilayer structure was analyzed with a transmission electron microscope (TEM). No gallium oxide was detected at the interface.

The new design has also made it possible to drastically improve energy conversion efficiency: The cell achieved values of 19.8% for the front face and 10.9% for the rear in the same cell. In addition, the team has also managed to fabricate, for the first time, a bifacial CIGS solar cell on a flexible polymer substrate, which -due to its lightness and flexibility- broadens the spectrum of potential applications.

Tiwari and his colleagues discuss the technical details of their technological breakthrough in the academic journal Nature Energy, under the title “Efficiency boost of bifacial Cu(In,Ga)Se2 thin-film solar cells for flexible and tandem applications with silver-assisted low- temperature process”:

Amazings NCYT source : https://noticiasdelaciencia.com/art/45665/paneles-solares-para-captar-luz-por-ambos-lados

Cover photo : ShutterStock