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Solar power generation has many advantages, such as not consuming the earth's resources and not causing environmental pollution. The most widely used solar cell at present is monocrystalline silicon, because this material has the highest energy conversion efficiency, and silicon can be found everywhere on earth, but this material is not perfect, it is very fragile, it can break if it is bent slightly, or if it is transported by a slight shock.
In order to figure out how monocrystalline silicon wafers break, scientists used ultra-high-speed cameras that can continuously shoot 1 million images per second** to film the entire process of silicon wafer fracture. They found that monocrystalline wafers start with microscopic grooves, and that the surface of monocrystalline wafers is so smooth that it reflects most of the light, and to improve their efficiency in absorbing light, manufacturers will treat the wafers with chemical solvents that give them tiny pyramid-like protrusions on their surface, and the grooves between these pyramids are their Achilles' heel. Not only that, but the scientists also found that the fracture always starts at the edge of the monocrystalline silicon wafer, so they thought that simply changing the shape of the grooves on the edge of the monocrystalline silicon wafer could make the silicon wafer stronger. The fracture of monocrystalline silicon solar cells under bending stress always starts from the "V" shaped groove at the edge of the monocrystalline silicon wafer, and this area is defined as the "mechanical shortcoming" of the silicon wafer. The research team has innovatively developed an edge rounding technology that processes the sharp "V" grooves on the surface and sides of the edge of the silicon wafer into smooth "U" shaped grooves to change the structural symmetry at the mesoscale. The results of subsequent analysis show that the "brittle" fracture behavior of monocrystalline silicon is transformed into the fracture behavior of "elastoplastic" secondary shear zone.
The team developed an edge processing technique in which dozens of wafers are stacked on top of each other, and then an acidic solution is used to corrode the edges of the wafers, turning the micro-grooves with sharp edges into smooth U-grooves that do not affect the overall performance of the wafer and reduce the probability of breakage. The 60 micron thick monocrystalline silicon solar cells processed in the experiment can be folded like A4 paper and can be wrapped into a cylindrical shape, even after 1,000 folds. The successful development of this cell marks an important breakthrough in the field of solar cells.
Foldable solar cells are a new type of solar cell that is characterized by being bent and folded like paper, making it extremely flexible and portable. With the advent of this kind of battery, solar cells are no longer limited to fixed shapes and sizes, but can be adapted to more application scenarios, such as backpacks, tents, cars, sailboats and even airplanes. Foldable solar cells can play a role in many industries, not only in buildings, backpacks, tents, cars, sailboats and even airplanes, to provide light and clean energy for houses, various portable electronic and communication equipment, vehicles, etc., but also in wearable electronics, mobile communications, vehicle mobile energy, photovoltaic building integration, aerospace and other fields.
In general, the emergence of foldable solar cells has undoubtedly opened up a new path for the application of solar cells, and it is of great significance to promote the popularization and application of solar cells. At the same time, with the continuous progress of science and technology, it is believed that more innovative technologies and products will appear in the future to contribute to the sustainable development of human society.