Developing textile electrodes for flexible solar cells

Transparent electrodes for mobile phone touch screens, liquid-crystal displays, LEDs and thin-film solar cells use rare metal alloys (most commonly indium tin oxide) that ratchet up the price of end products and make larger applications cost-prohibitive. Now Empa (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology) in Dübendorf, Switzerland, has developed a flexible and transparent woven polymer that includes metal nano-wires that allow it to conduct electricity. The polymer, integrated into a stationary plastic layer, will be manufactured by Sefar AG, Heiden, Switzerland, a high-performance fabric company that will use a roll-to-roll technique to achieve a cost-saving alternative to thin-film solar products using rare metals. Empa continues to research various coatings for the substrate.

Source: Empa