New Thin Film Photovoltaic World Record announced on Conference in Berlin
Advanced analytics for both thin film technologies with silicon as well as CIGS: Beside highly developed deposition tools, a comprehensive infrastructure was set up at PVcomB. Here, a glass substrate is loaded into a multi-chamber deposition tool where it will be deposited with only a few micrometers of silicon layers forming finally the active part a solar cell.
Foto: Berlin Partner für Wirtschaft und Technologie / Monique Wüstenhagen
The 5th International Workshop on CIGS Solar Cell Technology organized bei Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) started with a bang. Katsumi Kushiya by the Japanese company Solar Frontier presented the approximately 100 participants a new world record conversion efficiency for thin-film-photovoltaic technologies. Their new thin-film CIGS cells can convert 20.9 percent of the incident sunlight into electrical energy beating the previous Solar Frontier- record of 19.7 percent conversion efficiency. The previous best value for all thin-film photovoltaic technologies was 20.8 percent.
Solar Frontier has achieved this in a joint research with the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO). As the company reported the new world record was achieved on a 0.5 cm2 solar CIGS cell. The CIGS layer was deposited on a glass substrate using a sputtering-selenization formation method - a similiar technology is also used by HZBs Photovoltaic Cpmpetence Centre (PVcomB) for coating its 30 by 30 cm2 modules.
Prof. Dr. Rutger Schlatmann, head of PVcomB and organizer of the workshop is pleased with the message: "Congratulations to Solar Frontier. We are happy, that they have chosen our workshop to announce this great result. This shows that the event is well established in the thin film community and has a very good reputation."
The workshop IW CIGSTech continues the previous Thin Film Week, traditionally held in April in Berlin-Adlershof. The PVcomB organise the workshop annually within its Programme "Advanced Research and Innovation in the New States" funded by the federal government and the State of Berlin.
- CIGS-perovskite tandem cell achieves record efficiency of 25.5 %A Berlin-based team from HZB and Center for the Science of Materials Berlin (CSMB) at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin has set a new record for a tandem solar cell. Using a combination of a CIGS semiconductor layer and perovskite, along with several optimised intermediate layers, they were able to convert 25.5% of sunlight into electrical energy. The previous record for this combination of materials and this size of cell stood at 24.6%. The new record has been certified and is visible in the prestigious Solar Cell Efficiency Tables (the "Green Tables"), which serve as the definitive ledger for the global photovoltaic community.
- Disorder creates new properties in compound semiconductorsAn international research team has demonstrated that the intrinsic disorder of the compound semiconductor CuInSnS₄ can be exploited to influence its optical properties. While the atomic vibrations also sense the local disorder, their response is averaged over many different local environments and therefore appear isotropic, as expected for a cubic crystal. In contrast, the optical excitations, known as excitons, are much more sensitive to the local arrangement of atoms. Surprisingly, they show a direction-dependent optical response even though the average crystal structure is cubic. These findings shed new light on the relationship between disorder and material properties, opening up new options for targeted 'disorder engineering' in optoelectronic and photocatalytic devices.
- Perovskite solar cells: Predictions of long-term stabilityReliable statements about the long-term stability of perovskite solar cells are still difficult to make. However, a new study by Dr Carolin Ulbrich’s team, published in the renowned journal Joule, highlights which methods are useful for this purpose and identifies areas where further research is needed.