A new type of ultrathin solar cell has been developed with the ability to turn almost any surface into a source of solar energy.
Because they are lightweight and flexible, the cells could potentially be attached to a yacht’s sails to provide power at sea, on tents used in disaster zones, or even on drones to extend their range by harvesting solar power as they go.
The cells themselves are much thinner than a human hair, being constructed from nanomaterials in the form of printable electronic inks.
They are then affixed to a strong flexible fabric, which in turn can be fixed to a fixed or flexible surface.
Vladimir Bulović of MIT, where the cells were developed, said that solar technology was typically judged on its efficiency in power conversion and cost per unit of electricity.
The cells perform very well in all these metrics but Bulović added that integrability – the ease with which it can be adopted – was also important.
The versatility and lightweight nature of the new solar strips could see them deployed in a wide range of settings, increasing the overall use of carbon-free solar power.
The solar cells themselves are just a few microns thick
To create the cells, MIT engineers deposit layers of the electronic nanomaterials onto a substrate that is just 3 microns thick.
An electrode is added using a screen-printing technique that is not unlike the method used to print silkscreen art or T-shirts.
The whole module, which is around 15 microns thick, can then be peeled from the substrate and attached to a robust but flexible fabric known as Dyneema.
The result is a paper-thin strip that can be easily fixed to other surfaces.
In tests, the researchers found that the cells were able to produce 730 watts of power per kilogram in their freestanding state and 370 watts-per-kilogram when attached to the Dyneema fabric.
This was still around 18 times more power-per-kilogram than conventional solar cells, which tend to be encased in glass and housed in heavy metallic frames.
As well as being efficient, the flexible strips are durable, and tests showed that they retained more than 90% of their power generation even after being rolled and unrolled 500 times.
They still need additional protection from the environment, but the team say they are working on ultrathin packaging solutions that would only increase the weight of the devices by a fraction.
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