A UK startup is trying to commercialize technology it claims can boost solar panel output by up to 15% without interfering with existing manufacturing processes.
Cambridge Photon Technology has a patented material for photon multiplication, which the company describes as a drop-in solution that can be readily integrated with existing large-scale module manufacturing processes. CEO Claudio Marinelli told pv magazine the company has already identified multiple outsource manufacturers that can produce its solution at scale.
The photon multiplier works by increasing the number of usable photons with wavelength usable by silicon PV cells: the wavelengths that the cells can absorb and convert to electrical energy. It does so this by splitting high energy photons – ultraviolet, blue or green photons in the solar spectrum – into two half-energy infra-red photons, while allowing other photons to travel through the material unaffected.
The startup exploits the quantum mechanical principle known as singlet fission, which allows certain organic molecules to absorb photons, convert them into electrical energy and split that energy into half-energy packets.
“That’s the key,” said Marinelli. “We get those half-energy packets to be absorbed by a nanomaterial and re-emitted as photons.”
Cambridge Photon Technology uses an organic molecule similar to the dyes used in the automotive industry to absorb the high energy photons and split them into energy packets. The half-energy packets are then turned into half energy photons by passing through a nano material.
The startup has two patents relating to a photon multiplying material and one patent for luminescent harvesting of spin triplet excitons. The material is integrated with module manufacturing at the encapsulant phase, as an additive inside the encapsulant film. It’s a process that Marinelli said shouldn’t require any change to existing PV manufacturing lines.
“The whole point is you will not change anything,” he said. “When you receive your encapsulant film instead of the current three additives, you will have four. You just get on with your business as usual, same temperature, same conditions for the gluing of the top glass.”
Cambridge Photon Technology’s business case is based on providing relative efficiency gains without significant modification of manufacturing processes, according to Marinelli, who said that the startup’s photon multiplication tech can increase a solar panel’s efficiency by up to 15%, meaning a 25% efficiency panel would increase to 28.75% efficiency.
“We supply and have to fit in an industry that produced billions of square meters of panels every year,” said Marinelli. “We figured out that even our first-generation product – with is a mere 4% relative power boost – unlocks a value for the industry that is three times the cost of our materials.”
The idea has attracted financial backing. Cambridge Photon Technology is a spin-out from University of Cambridge and the startup recently secured GBP 1.56 million ($2.1 million) of funding in a pre-Series A funding round in November 2025. Marinelli told pv magazine the next step is to prove the technology’s performance to the wider industry.
“We want the performance not just achieved and measured by ourselves and our labs but also validated by industry. The next two years are about showing that we can achieve the performance of the first-generation product, integrate our solution in PV encapsulants, and therefore present it to the module manufacturer as a drop-in solution,” he said. “It's a journey between now and the end of 2027, during which we'll prove the performance and the integration of our solution into established industry processes.”
Cambridge Photon Technology also plans to further investigate the impact its technology might have on module temperature and UV degradation. Marinelli said the product economics modelling that the startup has conducted with industry to date has only looked at gains in efficiency. However, splitting high energy photons to produce more usable photons results in a reduction in unabsorbed energy hitting the module – and therefore less heat, which should mean more of a PV module’s intrinsic efficiency is preserved over time.
“We also act as an ultraviolet photoprotective agent,” said Marinelli. “This also contributes to reducing the damage to the encapsulant, for instance. Those are two additional value drivers that we haven’t built into our product economics model yet, but we’re doing it right now.”
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.