News Article
ZSW Researchers Break Own CIGS Efficiency Record and Hit 20.3%
The scientists based in Germany have produced a thin-film Copper Indium Gallium di-Selenide (CIGS) solar cell with 20.3 % efficiency, a 0.2% increase over their previous record.
Scientists at the Zentrum für Sonne- nenergie- und Wasserstoff-Forschung Baden-Württemberg, Germany (Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research, ZSW) have again achieved a success in striving to increase the electricity yield of solar cells.
They have again beaten their own record of 20.1 % efficiency. The Stuttgart researchers say that with this performance, they need to only increase the efficiency by another 0.1 % for CIGS to compete with multi-crystalline solar cells which are currently the most popular on the market.
The new record-breaking solar cells from ZSW are made of extremely thin layers of the CIGS alloy.
The researchers boast that the new results should significantly improve the cost-effectiveness of CIGS thin-film photovoltaics over the medium term. The area of the world record cell is 0.5 square centimetres. The semi- conducting CIGS layer and the contact layers have a total thickness of only four thousandths of a millimetre, making them 50 times thinner than standard silicon cells.
"Our researchers have made the cells in a CIGS laboratory coating plant using a modified co-evaporation process, which in principle can be scaled up to commercial production processes," said Michael Powalla, Member of the Board and Head of the Photovoltaics Division at ZSW.
The Fraunhofer ISE in Freiburg, Germany has confirmed the new results. However, it could take a while before the increased efficiency of CIGS solar cells can be commercially utilized, admitted Powalla.
