Progress in the research on the performance, processing and reliability of lightweight and flexible thin-film PV foils at TUDelft

The progress in research and development in the bilateral collaboration between Delft University of Technology and HyET Solar on lightweight and flexible thin-film photovoltaic (PV) foils, will be presented. The PV technologies under development are based on thin-film silicon, perovskites or a hybrid combination of both materials. Advances in terms of performance, reliability and processing of thin film PV foils and materials will be presented. In this contribution we will focus on i) the development of textured substrates to enhance the optical performance of thin-film PV devices, ii) development of bi-layered indium-free transparent conductive oxide (TCOs) to decouple the optical and electrical functionality of the transparent front contact-window layers in thin-film PV devices, iii) volume-deficiency and defect engineering of germanium alloys to realize a low band gap p-i-n junction for multi-junction PV architectures; iv) upscaling the deposition rates of perovskites absorber layers using co-evaporation processing, and v) development of in-house ElectroLuminescence and IR analyses on PV foils as a helpful feedback loop to quickly start up a module production line and optimize its processing steps.