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Research on Perovskite-CIGS tandem solar cells yields 24.9% efficiency

20th March 2023

Midsummer

Harry Fowle

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Based on a commercial CIGS solar cell, Midsummer engineers, by working with researchers at Prof. Yang Yang’s laboratory of University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), have demonstrated a four-terminal perovskite-CIGS tandem solar cell reaching 24.9% efficiency.

Midsummer has recently, by a joint project with Prof. Yang, demonstrated a 4-terminal perovskite-CIGS tandem solar cell. It is based on a perovskite top cell that has been optimised for integration with Midsummer’s CIGS cells that are utilised in their commercial suite of BIPV products.

The cell has shown an efficiency of 24.9% as a 4-terminal device architecture. It consists of a top layer of wide bandgap perovskite cell and a bottom layer of the CIGS cell. The research continues with the aim of a two-terminal perovskite-CIGS cell which will render this particular solar cell highly competitive and suitable for mass production.

This work shows the feasibility of building a tandem cell on a breakthrough production-proven process developed at Midsummer and using the Midsummer DUO machine. The DUO production system developed by Midsummer is able to provide high-performance CIGS solar cells with dimensions of 156x156mm on a flexible stainless-steel substrate. This form factor is ideally suited for the subsequent processing of perovskite films on the company’s current BIPV product suite (SLIM; WAVE; and BOLD).

“We feel fortunate to be working with Professor Yang’s group at UCLA which has demonstrated key advances in perovskites,” said Leon Chiu, President, Pioneer Materials, Inc. “Integrating Midsummer’s production-proven CIGS processing with Yang’s Lab tailored perovskite shows a clear path toward expanding the reach of BIPV by improving efficiency and lowering costs.”

“Perovskite-CIGS tandem cells have great future potential and Midsummer’s solar panel design has by far the best conditions for building a commercial product for this type of solar panel, e.g since it contains a diode between each solar cell,” comments Sven Lindström, CEO, Midsummer.

Quote by Professor Yang Yang: “We are thrilled to have this opportunity to work with Midsummer and PMI. Our ultimate goal is to demonstrate two-terminal perovskite/CIGS tandem cells, suitable for mass production.”