Electric vehicle owners often face the challenge of running out of battery power and struggling to find a nearby charging station.
Source: China News Service
Electric vehicle owners often face the challenge of running out of battery power and struggling to find a nearby charging station. In the future, the use of flexible stacked solar cells could directly convert solar energy into electricity, potentially eliminating charging anxiety. This is one of the future applications of flexible stacked solar cells being explored by Dr. Wang Rui’s team at the Future Industry Research Center and the School of Engineering at West Lake University.
Recently, Dr. Wang’s team announced a major breakthrough in the field of flexible stacked solar cells. By stacking layers, they have improved the ability of perovskite/copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) solar cells to absorb solar energy, achieving a photovoltaic conversion efficiency of 23.4%. This advancement allows these solar cells to convert sunlight into electricity more effectively.
Perovskite solar cells, which use perovskite-based organic metal halide semiconductors as light-absorbing materials, are considered next-generation solar technology. Known for their potential to revolutionize solar energy, perovskite halides are an active area of research, with stacked cells being a promising development. Dr. Wang explained that stacking two different types of solar cells not only significantly enhances energy conversion efficiency but could also achieve a theoretical maximum efficiency of up to 40%. This approach takes advantage of the complementary properties of the materials, allowing the perovskite cells to overcome each other’s limitations.
Dr. Wang compared a single-junction perovskite solar cell to a “single-layer cake,” while stacked solar cells resemble a “multi-layer cake.” Each layer, made from a different semiconductor material, captures specific wavelengths of solar light. This allows stacked solar cells to absorb a broader range of solar energy than single-layer cells, making them more efficient in converting sunlight into electricity and breaking through the efficiency limits of traditional single-junction solar cells.
“This stacked solar cell is as thin as a human hair and has the potential for future use on irregular surfaces such as buildings, vehicles, aircraft, and flexible wearable devices,” said Dr. Wang.