Technique enables the creation of thinner thin-film solar cells

‘We were able to create solar cells using a “nanoscale sandwich” design with an ultra-thin “active” layer,’ said Dr Linyou Cao, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at North Carolina State University and co-author of a paper describing the research.

‘For example, we created a solar cell with an active layer of amorphous silicon that is only 70nm thick. This is a significant improvement, because typical thin-film solar cells currently on the market that also use amorphous silicon have active layers between 300 and 500nm thick.’

The ‘active’ layer in thin-film solar cells is the layer of material that actually absorbs solar energy for conversion into electricity or chemical fuel.

‘The technique we’ve developed is very important because it can be generally applied to many other solar-cell materials, such as cadmium telluride, copper indium gallium selenide and organic materials,’ Cao said in a statement.

The new technique is said to rely largely on conventional manufacturing processes, but results in a very different finished product.