Printable, wide band-gap chalcopyrite thin films for power generating window applications

Printable, wide band-gap chalcopyrite compound films (CuInGaS(2), CIGS) were synthesized on transparent conducting oxide substrates. The wide band-gap and defective nature of the films reveal semi-transparent and bifacial properties that are beneficial for power generating window applications. Importantly, solar cell devices with these films demonstrate a synergistic effect for bifacial illumination resulting in a 5.4–16.3% increase of the apparent power conversion efficiency compared to the simple sum of the efficiencies of the front and rear side illumination only. We also confirmed that this extra output power acquisition due to bifacial irradiation is apparently not influenced by the light intensity of the rear side illumination, which implies that weak light (e.g., indoor light) can be efficiently utilized to improve the overall solar cell efficiency of bifacial devices.