Fabrication of light weight flexible CIGS solar cells for space power applications

摘要

A novel, non-vacuum and a patented process developed by ISET for manufacturing terrestrial CIGS solar cells was successfully applied to fabricate CIGS solar cells on flexible 50 μm thick Mo foil for space power applications. Solar cells of area 5.0 cm{sup}2 were fabricated with their AM0 efficiency approaching 9.0% with an estimated power density of 250 watts/kg. With further improvements it is possible to fabricate CIGS solar cells with AM0 efficiencies approaching 13%. This process can be used to fabricate low cost, light-weight CIGS solar cells on a variety of flexible substrates much lighter than Mo foil to achieve power densities approaching 1.0 kW/kg.