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Colloidal Lithography for Photovoltaics: An Attractive Route for Light Management
The pursuit of ever-more efficient, reliable, and affordable solar cells has pushed the development of nano/micro-technological solutions capable of boosting photovoltaic (PV) performance without significantly increasing costs. One of the most relevant solutions is based on light management via phot...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8307338/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34202858 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nano11071665 |
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author | Oliveira, Rui D. Mouquinho, Ana Centeno, Pedro Alexandre, Miguel Haque, Sirazul Martins, Rodrigo Fortunato, Elvira Águas, Hugo Mendes, Manuel J. |
author_facet | Oliveira, Rui D. Mouquinho, Ana Centeno, Pedro Alexandre, Miguel Haque, Sirazul Martins, Rodrigo Fortunato, Elvira Águas, Hugo Mendes, Manuel J. |
author_sort | Oliveira, Rui D. |
collection | PubMed |
description | The pursuit of ever-more efficient, reliable, and affordable solar cells has pushed the development of nano/micro-technological solutions capable of boosting photovoltaic (PV) performance without significantly increasing costs. One of the most relevant solutions is based on light management via photonic wavelength-sized structures, as these enable pronounced efficiency improvements by reducing reflection and by trapping the light inside the devices. Furthermore, optimized microstructured coatings allow self-cleaning functionality via effective water repulsion, which reduces the accumulation of dust and particles that cause shading. Nevertheless, when it comes to market deployment, nano/micro-patterning strategies can only find application in the PV industry if their integration does not require high additional costs or delays in high-throughput solar cell manufacturing. As such, colloidal lithography (CL) is considered the preferential structuring method for PV, as it is an inexpensive and highly scalable soft-patterning technique allowing nanoscopic precision over indefinitely large areas. Tuning specific parameters, such as the size of colloids, shape, monodispersity, and final arrangement, CL enables the production of various templates/masks for different purposes and applications. This review intends to compile several recent high-profile works on this subject and how they can influence the future of solar electricity. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8307338 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-83073382021-07-25 Colloidal Lithography for Photovoltaics: An Attractive Route for Light Management Oliveira, Rui D. Mouquinho, Ana Centeno, Pedro Alexandre, Miguel Haque, Sirazul Martins, Rodrigo Fortunato, Elvira Águas, Hugo Mendes, Manuel J. Nanomaterials (Basel) Review The pursuit of ever-more efficient, reliable, and affordable solar cells has pushed the development of nano/micro-technological solutions capable of boosting photovoltaic (PV) performance without significantly increasing costs. One of the most relevant solutions is based on light management via photonic wavelength-sized structures, as these enable pronounced efficiency improvements by reducing reflection and by trapping the light inside the devices. Furthermore, optimized microstructured coatings allow self-cleaning functionality via effective water repulsion, which reduces the accumulation of dust and particles that cause shading. Nevertheless, when it comes to market deployment, nano/micro-patterning strategies can only find application in the PV industry if their integration does not require high additional costs or delays in high-throughput solar cell manufacturing. As such, colloidal lithography (CL) is considered the preferential structuring method for PV, as it is an inexpensive and highly scalable soft-patterning technique allowing nanoscopic precision over indefinitely large areas. Tuning specific parameters, such as the size of colloids, shape, monodispersity, and final arrangement, CL enables the production of various templates/masks for different purposes and applications. This review intends to compile several recent high-profile works on this subject and how they can influence the future of solar electricity. MDPI 2021-06-24 /pmc/articles/PMC8307338/ /pubmed/34202858 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nano11071665 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Review Oliveira, Rui D. Mouquinho, Ana Centeno, Pedro Alexandre, Miguel Haque, Sirazul Martins, Rodrigo Fortunato, Elvira Águas, Hugo Mendes, Manuel J. Colloidal Lithography for Photovoltaics: An Attractive Route for Light Management |
title | Colloidal Lithography for Photovoltaics: An Attractive Route for Light Management |
title_full | Colloidal Lithography for Photovoltaics: An Attractive Route for Light Management |
title_fullStr | Colloidal Lithography for Photovoltaics: An Attractive Route for Light Management |
title_full_unstemmed | Colloidal Lithography for Photovoltaics: An Attractive Route for Light Management |
title_short | Colloidal Lithography for Photovoltaics: An Attractive Route for Light Management |
title_sort | colloidal lithography for photovoltaics: an attractive route for light management |
topic | Review |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8307338/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34202858 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nano11071665 |
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