Low-Cost Alkaline Solar Cells

Photovoltaic (PV) devices are one of the main alternatives of environmentally clean and renewable energy. The conversion efficiency of solar power into electricity using PV technology is currently limited owing to unwanted heat generation and high production cost. The innovative alkaline PV technology (patented by Solaris Photonics) promises to simplify solar cells manufacturing steps, and its development could meet the essential objective of lowering the production cost from current $0.7/W down to $0.13/W utilising an all-sputtering process and novel alkaline semiconductor materials with high conversion efficiency (14-30%) thus lowering the cost of conventionally generated electricity at point of use. The current proposal aims at the development of novel sputtering targets based on abundant alkaline materials capable of being deposited as thin-film layers on large areas by industrial sputtering equipment in order to fabricate high-efficiency and low-cost pre-industrial prototype "Alkaline Solar Cells" utilizing an all sputtering manufacturing process.