How to build highly foldable solar cells?

The key requirements to construct highly foldable solar cells, including structure design based on tuning the neutral axis plane, and adopting flexible alternatives including substrates, transparent electrodes and absorbers, are intensively discussed.

What are foldable solar cells?

Key points for achieving highly foldable solar cells Compared to the normal bendable solar cells which can endure flexion with a smooth curve with radius of several millimeters, foldable solar cells can tolerate the crease at the edge with a curvature radius of sub-millimeter.

Do foldable solar cells have a low PCE?

By now, the foldable solar cells generally exhibit low PCE and inferior folding stability compared with that of normal bendable solar cells.

Can polymer substrates be used for foldable solar cells?

Besides paper and woven fabric, the normally used polymer substrates can also be applied as the substrates for foldable solar cells. Kaltenbrunner et al. demonstrated ultrathin perovskite solar cells on 1.4 µm PET substrates, which exhibited stabilized efficiency of 12% and a power-per-weight as high as 23 W g −1.

Are solar tracking systems suitable for small PV self-powered systems?

However, existing solar tracking systems are costly and complex structure, making them unsuitable for small PV self-powered systems. The cost of solar tracked PV systems include the energy cost of the solar tracking system itself and the monetary cost of the required equipment.

Are foldable solar cells a future development?

In the end, some perspectives for the future development of foldable solar cells, especially the standard folding procedure, improvement in the folding endurance through revealing failure mechanism, are provided.