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.
- Porous Radical Organic framework improves lithium-sulphur batteriesA team led by Prof. Yan Lu, HZB, and Prof. Arne Thomas, Technical University of Berlin, has developed a material that enhances the capacity and stability of lithium-sulphur batteries. The material is based on polymers that form a framework with open pores (known as radical-cationic covalent organic frameworks or COFs). Catalytically accelerated reactions take place in these pores, firmly trapping polysulphides, which would shorten the battery life. Some of the experimental analyses were conducted at the BAMline at BESSY II.
- Shedding light on insulators: how light pulses unfreeze electronsMetal oxides are abundant in nature and central to technologies such as photocatalysis and photovoltaics. Yet, many suffer from poor electrical conduction, caused by strong repulsion between electrons in neighboring metal atoms. Researchers at HZB and partner institutions have shown that light pulses can temporarily weaken these repulsive forces, lowering the energy required for electrons mobility, inducing a metal-like behavior. This discovery offers a new way to manipulate material properties with light, with high potential to more efficient light-based devices.
- Lithium-sulphur batteries with lean electrolyte: problem areas clarifiedUsing a non-destructive method, a team at HZB investigated practical lithium-sulphur pouch cells with lean electrolyte for the first time. With operando neutron tomography, they could visualise in real-time how the liquid electrolyte distributes and wets the electrodes across multilayers during charging and discharging. These findings offer valuable insights into the cell failure mechanisms and are helpful to design compact Li-S batteries with a high energy density in formats relevant to industrial applications.