Sol Voltaics Aligns, Orients Nanowires in Solar Thin Film

Advanced materials startup Sol Voltaics AB has reported successful alignment and orientation of nanowires in a thin film, an achievement the company said will pave the way for a 50 percent boost in photovoltaic (PV) module efficiencies.

Nanowires hold promise for solar energy generation but are notoriously difficult to align due to their high aspect ratios and material characteristics. By controlling nanowire orientation and alignment at centimeter scale on standard-sized wafers, Sol Voltaics said taken a major step toward the commercial production of solar films for tandem solar PV modules with efficiencies of 27 percent or more.

This milestone follows Sol Voltaics' 2015 announcement that the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems confirmed a world-record PV conversion efficiency of 15.3 percent for the company's epitaxially grown GaAs nanowire solar cells. The cells were recently retested by Fraunhofer and showed little or no degradation nearly 18 months after the initial tests, reaffirming the technology's performance reliability.

Sol Voltaics also said it has progressed through several generations of development of its Aerotaxy production technology, which seeks to achieve cost-effective III-V nanowire solar cell production via a continuous gas phase process.

For more information, visit www.solvoltaics.com.