Japanese manufacturer acquires rights to produce 23.26% efficient CIGS perovskite cell developed by HZB and Kaunas University

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Scientists at the Lithuania Kaunas University of Technology have revealed a few details about the 23.26% efficient perovskite-based copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) solar cell they developed with the Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin (HZB).

The developers said the material used for the cell is made of molecules based on carbazole head groups with phosphonic acid anchoring groups and consists of 1-2nm of self-assembled monolayers deposited on the surface of the perovskite by dipping it into a diluted solution.

“Developed monolayers can be called a perfect hole-transporting material as they are cheap, are formed by a scalable technique and are forming very good contact with perovskite materials,” the research team noted.

Energy materials research center the HZB had achieved 21.6% for the same thin-film CIGS perovskite cell technology on a slightly smaller surface area in February 2017.

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The scientists said the license to produce the material has been purchased by an unnamed Japanese company and they expect the two materials, dubbed 2PACz and MeO-2PACz, will soon be commercially available.

The world’s largest CIGS module manufacturer is Japanese company Solar Frontier, which is now a unit of oil refiner Idemitsu Kosan. Last January, Solar Frontier said it had set a new record for thin film solar cell efficiency of 23.35% – representing a 0.4% improvement on its previous record of 22.9%, set in late 2017.

This article was amended on 09/01/20. The original version wrongly stated the performance of the CIGS device was improved to 27.5%, however that efficiency level was related to a crystalline silicon technology. pv magazine apologizes for the error.

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