Solar cell packaging structure design

What is the structure of a solar cell?

Schematic structure of solar cells comprising various functional materials: a flexible substrate, two electrodes, and an active layer. The direction of light entry to the active layer determines the optical requirement for the substrate and the electrodes. Fig. 3. Reported best efficiencies of solar cells made with various active materials.

How to build highly foldable solar cells?

The key requirements to construct highly foldable solar cells, including structure design based on tuning the neutral axis plane, and adopting flexible alternatives including substrates, transparent electrodes and absorbers, are intensively discussed.

How is a thin-film solar cell fabricated?

In general, a thin-film solar cell is fabricated by depositing various functional layers on a flexible substrate via techniques such as vacuum-phase deposition, solution-phase spin-coating, and printing. A flexible substrate provides mechanical support and environmental protection of the whole cell.

What materials are used for flexible solar cells?

Several types of active materials, such as a-Si:H, CIGS, small organics, polymers, and perovskites, have broadly been investigated for flexible solar cell application. In the following sections, we will discuss the fundamentals of these materials and their strength, weaknesses, and future perspectives for flexible solar cells.

What is a p-i-n based solar cell?

For a-Si:H-based flexible solar cells, a p-i-n configuration has broadly been utilized for generating and moving the charge carriers in which an intrinsic layer is attached to p- and n-type regions, 94 exhibiting a PCE of over 10%. 90 In the p-i-n devices, the a-Si:H layer absorbs most of the photons and produces electron-hole pairs.

Can polymer substrates be used for foldable solar cells?

Besides paper and woven fabric, the normally used polymer substrates can also be applied as the substrates for foldable solar cells. Kaltenbrunner et al. demonstrated ultrathin perovskite solar cells on 1.4 µm PET substrates, which exhibited stabilized efficiency of 12% and a power-per-weight as high as 23 W g −1.