“In a given hour, more energy from sunlight strikes the earth than the entire planet consumes in a year, but solar cells currently contribute less than 0.1% of electricity supply—primarily as a result of cost,” said Dr. David Mitzi, who leads the team at IBM Research that developed the solar cell. “The quest to develop a solar technology that can compare on a cost per watt basis with the conventional electricity generation, and also offer the ability to deploy at the terawatt level, has become a major challenge that our research is moving us closer to overcoming.”
The IBM researchers describe their achievement of the thin-film photovoltaic technology in a paper published in Advanced Materials, highlighting the solar cell’s potential to accomplish the goal of producing low-cost energy that can be used widely and commercially. The solar cell development also sets itself apart from its predecessors as it was created using a combination of solution and nanoparticle-based approaches, rather than popular but expensive vacuum-based technique.
The production change is expected to enable much lower fabrication cost, as it is consistent with high-throughput deposition techniques printing, dip and spray coating and slit casting. While previous commercial efforts to employ thin film solar cell modules have produced 9 to 11% efficiency levels, they have primarily focused on only two costly compounds — copper indium gallium selenide or cadmium telluride — and as such, have been either too costly to produce or contain elements that could ultimately limit production capacity. Attempts to create affordable, earth abundant solar cells from related compounds have not exceeded 6.7%, compared to IBM’s 9.6% efficiency rating.
