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Ultrathin silicon solar microcells for semitransparent, mechanically flexible and microconcentrator module designs

Nature Materials volume 7, pages 907–915 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

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.

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Figure 1: Schematic illustrations, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image and optical images of key steps in the fabrication of monocrystalline silicon photovoltaic modules that incorporate arrays of microscale solar cells (μ-cells).
Figure 2: Doping layout and performance characteristics of individual μ-cells.
Figure 3: Optical image, schematic illustration, mechanics modelling and photovoltaic performance of mechanically flexible modules that incorporate arrays of interconnected μ-cells.
Figure 4: Optical images and transmission spectra of printed, semitransparent μ-cell arrays and interconnected modules.
Figure 5: Optical images, schematic illustration and performance characteristics of μ-CPV modules.

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Acknowledgements

We thank T. Banks, K. Colravy and D. Sievers for help with processing, T. Spila for assistance with secondary-ion mass spectrometry measurements and H. Kim and D. Stevenson for help with photography. The materials parts of this effort were supported by the US Department of Energy (DoE), Division of Materials Sciences, under award DE-FG02-07ER46471, through the Materials Research Laboratory (MRL). The general characterization facilities were provided through the MRL with support from the University of Illinois and from DoE grants DE-FG02-07ER46453 and DE-FG02-07ER46471. The mechanics theory and the transfer-printing systems were developed under support from the Center for Nanoscale Chemical Electrical Mechanical Manufacturing Systems at the University of Illinois (funded by the NSF under grant DMI-0328162). J.Y. and J.B.G. acknowledge support from a Beckman postdoctoral fellowship. A.J.B. acknowledges support from the Department of Defense Science, Mathematics and Research for Transformation (SMART) fellowship.

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Author notes

  1. Jongseung Yoon and Alfred J. Baca: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois 61801, USA

    Jongseung Yoon, Sang-Il Park, Lanfang Li, Rak Hwan Kim, Tae-Ho Kim, Bok Yeop Ahn, Eric B. Duoss, Jennifer A. Lewis, Ralph G. Nuzzo, Angus Rockett & John A. Rogers

  2. Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois 61801, USA

    Jongseung Yoon, Sang-Il Park, Joseph B. Geddes III, Rak Hwan Kim, Tae-Ho Kim & John A. Rogers

  3. Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois 61801, USA

    Jongseung Yoon, Alfred J. Baca, Sang-Il Park, Rak Hwan Kim, Tae-Ho Kim, Michael J. Motala, Bok Yeop Ahn, Eric B. Duoss, Jennifer A. Lewis, Ralph G. Nuzzo & John A. Rogers

  4. Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois 61801, USA

    Alfred J. Baca, Lanfang Li, Michael J. Motala, Ralph G. Nuzzo & John A. Rogers

  5. Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois 61801, USA

    Paulius Elvikis, Placid M. Ferreira & John A. Rogers

  6. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA

    Jianliang Xiao, Shuodao Wang & Yonggang Huang

  7. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA

    Yonggang Huang

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  1. Jongseung Yoon
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Contributions

J.Y., J.A.L., R.G.N., P.M.F., Y.H., A.R. and J.A.R. designed the experiments. J.Y., A.J.B., S.-I.P., P.E., L.L., R.H.K., T.-H.K., M.J.M., B.Y.A., E.B.D., J.A.L., R.G.N., P.M.F., Y.H., A.R. and J.A.R. carried out experiments. J.Y., A.J.B., S.-I.P., J.A.L., R.G.N., P.M.F., Y.H., A.R. and J.A.R. analysed the data. P.E., J.Y., R.H.K., T.-H.K., J.A.L., R.G.N., P.M.F., Y.H., A.R. and J.A.R. contributed to transfer printing. J.X., S.W., Y.H., J.A.L., R.G.N., P.M.F., Y.H., A.R. and J.A.R. contributed to mechanics modelling and analysis. J.B.G., J.A.L., R.G.N., P.M.F., Y.H., A.R. and J.A.R. contributed to optics simulation. J.Y., A.J.B., J.A.L., R.G.N., P.M.F., Y.H., A.R. and J.A.R. wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to John A. Rogers.

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Yoon, J., Baca, A., Park, SI. et al. Ultrathin silicon solar microcells for semitransparent, mechanically flexible and microconcentrator module designs. Nature Mater 7, 907–915 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2287

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