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Solar cells get flexible

Nature Photonics volume 1, pages 433–435 (2007)Cite this article

The idea of photovoltaic cells that can be printed onto thin, flexible plastic substrates are an enticing prospect for promoting solar energy generation. Duncan Graham-Rowe reports.

The hope is that by making solar cells, or photovoltaics, out of polymers instead of silicon they will become lighter, more flexible, cheaper to make and easier to install. Although widely deployed, the problems with traditional crystalline silicon photovoltaics are that they are still expensive to manufacture, rigid, heavy and modular. The result is that they have to be used on structures as discrete panels or arrays of panels. In contrast, so-called organic photovoltaics (OPVs) can be produced by spray coating or printing solutions of a special polymer onto a large, thin, flexible, plastic substrate using fast and cheap manufacturing processes that are scalable.

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  1. Duncan Graham-Rowe is a freelance science and technology journalist based in Brighton, UK. duncangr@gmail.com,

    Duncan Graham-Rowe

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  1. Duncan Graham-Rowe
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Graham-Rowe, D. Solar cells get flexible. Nature Photon 1, 433–435 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2007.127

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