Researchers at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology have developed solar panels that are thin enough to be printed with inkjet, light enough to rest on a soap bubble.
Conventional ‘ultrathin’ organic solar cells are typically made by spin-coating or thermal evaporation, with limits on scalability and device geometry.
The team applied inkjet printing, formulating functional inks for each layer of the solar cell architecture.
A transparent, flexible, conductive polymer, PEDOT:PSS or poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate, with the device able to be sealed within a waterproof parylene coating.
The solar cells were printed onto glass to test performance, achieving a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 4.73%, beating the record of 4.1% for a fully printed cell.
The team also demonstrated that a cell could be printed onto an ultrathin flexible substrate, reaching a PCE of 3.6%.