Stretchable and colorless freestanding microwire arrays for transparent solar cells with flexibility

Sung Bum Kang; Ji-Hwan Kim; Myeong Hoon Jeong; Amit Sanger; Chan Ul Kim; Chil-Min Kim; Kyoung Jin Choi

doi:10.1038/s41377-019-0234-y

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Stretchable and colorless freestanding microwire arrays for transparent solar cells with flexibility

Article

- Stretchable and colorless freestanding microwire arrays for transparent solar cells with flexibility
- Light: Science & Applications Vol. 8, Issue 6, Pages: 1168-1180(2019)
- Affiliations：
  
  1.Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan 44919, Republic of Korea
  2.Department of Emerging Materials Science, Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST), Daegu 42988, Republic of Korea
- Author bio：
  
  Kyoung Jin Choi (choi@unist.ac.kr)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/s41377-019-0234-y
  CLC：
- Published：2019，
  
  Published Online：12 December 2019，
  
  Received：19 August 2019，
  
  Revised：22 November 2019，
  
  Accepted：03 December 2019
- Accepted：
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Kang, S. B. et al. Stretchable and colorless freestanding microwire arrays for transparent solar cells with flexibility. Light: Science & Applications, 8, 1168-1180 (2019).
DOI：

Kang, S. B. et al. Stretchable and colorless freestanding microwire arrays for transparent solar cells with flexibility. Light: Science & Applications, 8, 1168-1180 (2019). DOI： 10.1038/s41377-019-0234-y.

摘要

Abstract

Transparent solar cells (TSCs) are emerging devices that combine the advantages of visible transparency and light-to-electricity conversion. Currently

existing TSCs are based predominantly on organics

dyes

and perovskites; however

the rigidity and color-tinted transparent nature of those devices strongly limit the utility of the resulting TSCs for real-world applications. Here

we demonstrate a flexible

color-neutral

and high-efficiency TSC based on a freestanding form of

-silicon microwires (SiMWs). Flat-tip SiMWs with controllable spacing are fabricated via deep-reactive ion etching and embedded in a freestanding transparent polymer matrix. The light transmittance can be tuned from ~10 to 55% by adjusting the spacing between the microwires. For TSCs

a heterojunction is forme

d with a p-type polymer in the top portion of the n-type flat-tip SiMWs. Ohmic contact with an indium-doped ZnO film occurs at the bottom

and the side surface has an Al

passivation layer. Furthermore

slanted-tip SiMWs are developed by a novel solvent-assisted wet etching method to manipulate light absorption. Finite-difference time-domain simulation revealed that the reflected light from slanted-tip SiMWs helps light-matter interactions in adjacent microwires. The TSC based on the slanted-tip SiMWs demonstrates 8% efficiency at a visible transparency of 10% with flexibility. This efficiency is the highest among Si-based TSCs and comparable with that of state-of-the-art neutral-color TSCs based on organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite and organics. Moreover

unlike others

the stretchable and transparent platform in this study is promising for future TSCs.

关键词

Keywords

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