Flexible thin-film solar cells touted

Thin film solar cells can be created with inexpensive materials on flexible surfaces such as plastic.

July 26, 1999
Web posted at: 3:17 p.m. EDT (1917 GMT)

Engineers at the University of Florida are developing an inexpensive method of making a new type of exceptionally thin and inexpensive solar cell they expect will make solar power the main source of electricity for the new millennium.

The cells, called thin-film solar cells, are 100 times thinner and potentially lighter than today's silicon cells. Because they require less semiconductor material than other solar cells, lots of thin film solar cells can be made for less money. However, the new cells have a much more complex structure and are more difficult to make which so far has limited their production and commercialization.

"They have a more complicated structure and require more complicated processing," said Tim Anderson, chairman of the UF chemical engineering department and member of the research team. "Our role is to better understand the and transfer the technology to industry."

The advantage of thin film solar cells is their ability to produce electrical power without harmful emissions, according to the scientists. They can also generate power for a house or small business on site, reducing electrical demand on power plants and electrical grids.

The thin-film cells can be created with pennies worth of material on flexible surfaces such as plastic.

"The material cost is very minimal," said Sheng Li, a UF professor of electrical and computer engineering and part of a four-member UF faculty team at work on the process. "This is a very promising technology for solar cells."

Li expects CIS cells to be widely available in less than 10 years.

Scientists and engineers at more than a dozen universities, government labs and corporations are exploring several different thin-film solar cell technologies as part of a major initiative sponsored by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

The UF team, part of the Thin Film Partnership program is focusing on a technology that uses a compound semiconductor called copper indium diselenide referred to as CIS.

The technology to create thin film solar cells involves depositing an extremely thin layer of CIS on a specially prepared material such as glass, according to Li. At two to three microns thick, the semiconductor layer is thinner than a human hair and 100 times thinner than conventional solar cells.

Researchers elsewhere have demonstrated CIS cells can convert as much as 18 percent of sunlight to electricity, about the efficiency of the most efficient traditional silicon cells, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which has provided about $1.6 million for the research.

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