Empowering Advanced Photovoltaic Pioneers: A Bilateral Italy-USA Project
Authors: Piccinni Marco , Carrea Davide , Slimani Sawssen , Omelianchik Aleksandr , Maltoni Pierfrancesco , Rossi Christian , Al-Hourani Jamal , Delsante Simona , Peddis Davide , Friedman Gary , Colombara Diego 
Published: December 2024

The sun bathes our planet with far more energy than humankind will possibly ever need (> 8,000 times the current demand). Yet, sustainable energy provision is among the most pressing challenges faced today. In order to unlock the vast potential of clean solar energy, we need disruptive technologies capable of efficiently harvesting sunlight, while being deployable at unprecedented scales. Available commercial photovoltaics (PV) can hardly cope sustainably with the sheer scale of this challenge. Silicon solar panels are the major commercial PV, they are based on a very Earth-abundant element, but their fabrication is extremely energy intensive. Conversely, thin film solar panels based on CdTe and Cu(In,Ga)Se2 require far less energy to produce, but some of their constituent elements are quite rare on the Earth’s crust. Hence, in both cases, the short term economic and ecologic sustainabilities are dubious. Recently, an advanced PV concept, called microconcentrator PV [1], has been conceived, which is free from raw materials availability constraints and is based on sunlight absorbers requiring low energy to grow. To demonstrate microconcentrator PV at laboratory scale, research groups have been using optical projection lithography (OPL), generating arrays of Cu(In,Ga)Se2 circles with tens of micrometer diameter. However, OPL cannot be scaled credibly to terawatt deployment. Industrial uptake of microconcentrator PV is only possible with a technique that ensures both high semiconductor quality, and high throughput at capital expenditure comparable or lower than currently available PVs. Inspired by the research of the US partner Gary Friedman [2], the Italian PI D. Colombara has patented a disrupting microfabrication technique [3] that could be scaled economically to deploy terawatts of microconcentrator PV. Our intent in this project is to leverage our complementary know-how to empower young PV pioneers and establish a lasting cooperation in this new promising field.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, grant number US23GR17. REMAP has received funding from the European Commission PathFinder Open programme under grant agreement No. 101046909. Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Innovation Council and SME Executive Agency (EISMEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

References

[1] M. Alves, A. Pérez-Rodríguez, P. J. Dale, C. Domínguez, and S. Sadewasser, ‘Thin-film micro-concentrator solar cells’, J. Phys. Energy, vol. 2, 012001, 2019, doi: 10.1088/2515-7655/ab4289.

[2] B. B. Yellen, G. Fridman, and G. Friedman, ‘Ferrofluid lithography’, Nanotechnology, vol. 15, S562–S565, 2004, doi: 10.1088/0957-4484/15/10/011.

[3] D . Colombara, ‘Method for patterning a surface of a substrate’ 2019. Available: https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2020136057