SBIR-STTR Award

The primary objective of this project will be to develop a low cost light weight flexible solar module technology with less than 50 m thin crystalline Si cells for military applications. Specifically, we will aim to fabricate a light weight (> 0.05W/g) silicon PV module with efficiency > 22% and cost less than $5/Wp that can meet the flexibility requirements for man portable military applications. We have developed a novel exfoliation process to spall thin (20-50 microns) crystalline layers from wafers and propose to use this process to fabricate high efficiency flexible Silicon PV cells.

In Phase 1, we have demonstrated flexible high efficiency Si solar cells with efficiency of 20%. In this phase, these high efficiency cells will be integrated into a flexible PV sheets that can yield high power per unit mass (>0.05W/g) with a high peak efficiency (>22%), and enhanced operability over a wide range of incidence angles (>40) for all-day operation. A cost model will be presented that shows this technology, when scaled up to production levels, would yield a cost per Watt of less than $5.