St Andrews University is looking for a partner, or partners, to commercialise its so-called “supercell” diffractive optics for thin-film solar cells.
The university says that its advanced design concept for light trapping can provide optimised performance that is compatible with low-cost and mass production techniques.
However, it is just the sort of technology that outsiders could wrest away from the UK, should the St Andrews call fall on deaf UK corporate ears.
But what are supercell diffractive optics and what can they bring to the photo-voltaics table?
According to St Andrews: “Light absorption in thin films can be strongly enhanced when guided modes supported by the thin film are excited when the diffraction angle of the light coupled by the grating matches the characteristic angle of the guided modes.
“Our invention – a novel design concept for diffraction gratings – explores large period gratings because these can excite more modes than typical light wavelength scale gratings.”
It is to benefit from the larger period that the so-called super-cell has been developed.
Its purpose is to shift the energy from the low diffraction orders, which cannot excite guided modes, to the higher diffraction orders, which are capable of exciting these modes.
Key Benefits claimed:
- The design concept is simple and can apparently be implemented in any kind of solar cell;
- Implementation is compatible with low-cost mass production technologies such as nano-imprint lighography;
- Light trapping using supercell binary gratings is substantially improved compared to common binary gratings and there is no additional fabrication cost
Thus far, there has been no commercial involvement in this research and St Andrews says it would welcome inquiries from third parties interested in developing commercial applications for this thin film technology for solar cells.