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Micro-sized thin-film solar cells via area-selective electrochemical deposition for concentrator photovoltaics application
- Source :
- Scientific Reports, Vol 10, Iss 1, Pp 1-13 (2020), Scientific reports, vol 10, iss 1, Scientific Reports
- Publication Year :
- 2020
-
Abstract
- Micro-concentrator solar cells enable higher power conversion efficiencies and material savings when compared to large-area non-concentrated solar cells. In this study, we use materials-efficient area-selective electrodeposition of the metallic elements, coupled with selenium reactive annealing, to form Cu(In,Ga)Se2 semiconductor absorber layers in patterned microelectrode arrays. This process achieves significant material savings of the low-abundance elements. The resulting copper-poor micro-absorber layers’ composition and homogeneity depend on the deposition charge, where higher charge leads to greater inhomogeneity in the Cu/In ratio and to a patchy presence of a CuIn5Se8 OVC phase. Photovoltaic devices show open-circuit voltages of up to 525 mV under a concentration factor of 18 ×, which is larger than other reported Cu(In,Ga)Se2 micro-solar cells fabricated by materials-efficient methods. Furthermore, a single micro-solar cell device, measured under light concentration, displayed a power conversion efficiency of 5% under a concentration factor of 33 ×. These results show the potential of the presented method to assemble micro-concentrator photovoltaic devices, which operate at higher efficiencies while using light concentration.
- Subjects :
- Materials science
Annealing (metallurgy)
Energy science and technology
lcsh:Medicine
02 engineering and technology
Electrochemistry
01 natural sciences
Article
Metal
0103 physical sciences
lcsh:Science
010302 applied physics
Multidisciplinary
business.industry
Photovoltaic system
Energy conversion efficiency
lcsh:R
021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology
Microelectrode
Chemistry
Semiconductor
visual_art
visual_art.visual_art_medium
Optoelectronics
lcsh:Q
0210 nano-technology
business
Voltage
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 20452322
- Volume :
- 10
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Scientific reports
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....12acd5d0aef4a6ef650ea3efabe8e9e1