How to build highly foldable solar cells?

The key requirements to construct highly foldable solar cells, including structure design based on tuning the neutral axis plane, and adopting flexible alternatives including substrates, transparent electrodes and absorbers, are intensively discussed.

What are foldable solar cells?

Key points for achieving highly foldable solar cells Compared to the normal bendable solar cells which can endure flexion with a smooth curve with radius of several millimeters, foldable solar cells can tolerate the crease at the edge with a curvature radius of sub-millimeter.

Do foldable solar cells crease?

The investigation on foldable solar cells is only a few. It is well known that folding induces the crease with a curvature radius of sub-millimeter, resulting in the appearance of large strain and stress.

Can polymer substrates be used for foldable solar cells?

Besides paper and woven fabric, the normally used polymer substrates can also be applied as the substrates for foldable solar cells. Kaltenbrunner et al. demonstrated ultrathin perovskite solar cells on 1.4 µm PET substrates, which exhibited stabilized efficiency of 12% and a power-per-weight as high as 23 W g −1.

What happens if a solar module is folded?

When the solar modules subjected to folding, the Jsc started to decrease and gradually saturated at around 4 mA cm -2 after 10 cycles of folding/unfolding, while the Voc almost remained constant throughout 40 times folding/unfolding, as shown in Figure 3D. Foldable solar cells with crease in the predesigned place.

Do foldable solar cells have a low PCE?

By now, the foldable solar cells generally exhibit low PCE and inferior folding stability compared with that of normal bendable solar cells.