MIT Develops Scalable Paper-Thin Solar Cells That Can be Attached to Nearly Any Fixed Surface

Photo credit: Melanie Gonick, MIT
Living in a floating solar home is nice, but imagine if you could cover it in paper-thin solar cells? MIT engineers have developed just that, and these fabric solar cells can turn nearly any surface into a power source. Each one is thinner than a human hair and glued to a strong, lightweight fabric, making it a breeze to install on fixed surfaces.

Since they are so thin and light, these solar cells can provide energy on the go as a wearable power fabric or rapidly deployed in remote locations for emergencies. Just how light? They are one-hundredth the weight of traditional solar panels and generate 18-times more power-per-kilogram due to its construction from semiconducting inks using printing processes that can be scaled in the future to large-area manufacturing. Whether it be the sails of a boat to provide power while at sea or stuck onto tents, this lightweight solar innovation can be built into environments with minimal installation.

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The metrics used to evaluate a new solar cell technology are typically limited to their power conversion efficiency and their cost in dollars-per-watt. Just as important is integrability — the ease with which the new technology can be adapted. The lightweight solar fabrics enable integrability, providing impetus for the current work,” said Vladimir Bulović, the Fariborz Maseeh Chair in Emerging Technology, leader of the Organic and Nanostructured Electronics Laboratory (ONE Lab).