Nature 617, 717–723 (2023) Cite this article Flexible solar cells have a lot of market potential for application in photovoltaics integrated into buildings and wearable electronics because they are lightweight, shockproof and self-powered. Silicon solar cells have been successfully used in large power plants.
Meanwhile, some thin-film solar cells —based on materials such as copper indium gallium selenide—are much more flexiblebecause they contain light-absorbing layers just 1 μm thick. That means they can wrap around the curves of vehicles or fit around parts of buildings that are out of bounds for stiff panels.
Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative Flexible and transparent thin-film silicon solar cells were fabricated and optimized for building-integrated photovoltaics and bifacial operation.
In general, a thin-film solar cell is fabricated by depositing various functional layers on a flexible substrate via techniques such as vacuum-phase deposition, solution-phase spin-coating, and printing. A flexible substrate provides mechanical support and environmental protection of the whole cell.
For the previous few decades, the photovoltaic (PV) market was dominated by silicon-based solar cells. However, it will transition to PV technology based on flexible solar cells recently because of increasing demand for devices with high flexibility, lightweight, conformability, and bendability.
Along with rapidly advancing battery technology, flexible solar panels are expected to create niche products that require lightweight, mechanical flexibility, and moldability into complex shapes, such as roof-panel for electric automobiles, foldable umbrellas, camping tents, etc.