Ultrathin silicon solar microcells for semitransparent, mechanically flexible and microconcentrator module designs.
The high natural abundance of silicon, together with its excellent reliability and good efficiency in solar cells, suggest its continued use in production of solar energy, on massive scales, for the foreseeable future. Although organics, nanocrystals, nanowires and other new materials hold significant promise, many opportunities continue to exist for research into unconventional means of exploiting silicon in advanced photovoltaic systems. Here, we describe modules that use large-scale arrays of silicon solar microcells created from bulk wafers and integrated in diverse spatial layouts on foreign substrates by transfer printing. The resulting devices can offer useful features, including high degrees of mechanical flexibility, user-definable transparency and ultrathin-form-factor microconcentrator designs. Detailed studies of the processes for creating and manipulating such microcells, together with theoretical and experimental investigations of the electrical, mechanical and optical characteristics of several types of module that incorporate them, illuminate the key aspects.
Yoon
Jongseung
J
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois 61801, USA.
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Alfred J
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Park
Sang-Il
SI
Elvikis
Paulius
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Geddes
Joseph B
JB
Li
Lanfang
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Kim
Rak Hwan
RH
Xiao
Jianliang
J
Wang
Shuodao
S
Kim
Tae-Ho
TH
Motala
Michael J
MJ
Ahn
Bok Yeop
BY
Duoss
Eric B
EB
Lewis
Jennifer A
JA
Nuzzo
Ralph G
RG
Ferreira
Placid M
PM
Huang
Yonggang
Y
Rockett
Angus
A
Rogers
John A
JA