[9p-W933-1~11] New trend of multinary compound research ~ control of physical properties, new application~

[9p-W933-7] Flexible CIGS solar cell for automotive applications

〇Taizo Masuda¹, Mikiya Inoue², Takahito Nishimura², Jakapan Chantana², Yuki Kudo¹, Takashi Minemoto² (1.Toyota Motor Corp., 2.Ritsumeikan Univ.)

Keywords:Flexible solar cell, solar powered vehicle, colored solar cell

We developed a simple lift-off process for producing colorful, flexible, and light-weight CIS solar cells for automotive applications. The developed lift-off process consists of three steps: first, attaching a plastic film on CIS/glass solar cell at temperature of around 100 °C; second, scribing the cell to the desired area/shape after cooling down; and finally, a back contact is deposited on detached layers. The major advantage of the lift-off process is that the CIS layer can be grown under high temperature, which is in contrast to the direct growth of CIS cells on plastic films. Our measurements show that the fabricated lift-off cells have nearly identical performance compared to that of the cell before the lift-off process, suggesting the validity of the developed lift-off process for producing flexible and light-weight CIS solar cells. The colors were generated on the cells by coating the highly transparent automotive paint on the plastic films. The glass-flake pigments were found to exhibit bright, uniform, and solid appearance on the flexible CIS solar cells with small output power reduction of less than 5% compared to the cells before the lift-off process. We believe that the highly decorative, flexible, and light-weight solar cells produced by the developed process can considerably increase the installable area on vehicles.