Uses and features of Chinese foldable solar panels

Why are foldable solar cells important?

It is widely accepted that folding is the extreme condition of bending which generating crease with extreme low curvature radius of sub-millimeter. Thus, foldable solar cells meet the requirements of size compactness and shape transformation for many emerging applications.

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.

What happens if a solar module is folded?

When the solar modules subjected to folding, the Jsc started to decrease and gradually saturated at around 4 mA cm -2 after 10 cycles of folding/unfolding, while the Voc almost remained constant throughout 40 times folding/unfolding, as shown in Figure 3D. Foldable solar cells with crease in the predesigned place.

What is the difference between bending and folding in solar cells?

However, in contrast to mild bending with curvature radius of several millimeters, folding generates the crease with extreme curvature radius of sub-millimeter, resulting in the appearance of large strain and stress. As a result, it is highly challenging to realize robustly foldable and highly efficient solar cells.

Which materials can be used in bending and foldable solar cells?

By now, carbon nanotube, graphene, ultrathin metal, metal nanowire, metal grids, conductive polymer, and their complex, have been widely applied in the robust bendable and foldable solar cells.

Do foldable polymer solar cells work on woven fabric?

Zhen et al. prepared foldable polymer solar cells on woven fabric using a free-standing and wet transfer method. The fabric-based solar cells exhibited PCE of 2.90%. Moreover, they maintained 50% of initial value after folding in half for 10 cycles, supposed to be due to the low Young's modulus of woven fabrics, as shown in Figure 4C.