Swedish CIGS thin-film solar cell manufacturer Midsummer announced that a four-terminal perovskite CIGS tandem solar cell developed with researchers from Prof. Yang Yang’s laboratory at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has achieved an impressive has reached an efficiency of 24.9%.

The cell consists of a top layer of wide-bandgap perovskite cell and a bottom layer of Midsummer’s CIGS cell. The project demonstrates the feasibility of manufacturing a tandem cell using a breakthrough, production-proven process developed at Midsummer and using Midsummer’s flagship CIGS cell production machine, DUO. The production facility can produce high-performance CIGS solar cells measuring 156 mm x 156 mm on a flexible stainless steel substrate. This form factor is ideally suited for subsequent processing of perovskite foils on the company’s current CIGS product line.

“Perovskite CIGS tandem cells have great future potential and Midsummer’s solar panel design has by far the best prospects to build a commercial product for this type of solar panel, e.g. B. contains a diode between each solar cell,” said Sven Lindstrom, CEO of Mittsommer.

Pioneer Materials, Inc is another project participant providing composite sputtering targets used in Midsummer’s novel processing for CIGS on stainless steel. Leon Chiu, President of the company, said, “The integration of Midsummer’s production-proven CIGS processing with Yang’s Lab’s custom-designed perovskite demonstrates a clear path to expanding the reach of BIPV by increasing efficiency and reducing costs.”

The group continues their collaboration in perovskite CIGS tandem cell research. The aim is to develop a two-pole perovskite CIGS cell that is suitable for mass production and further increases the competitiveness of the tandem cell.

Midsummer is committed to the research and manufacture of CIGS cells. The company’s CIGS products are widely recognized in the industry. In the last few months it has partnered with several well-known roofing companies to sell their products; and signed hundreds of megawatts from CIGS deals.

Laboratory of Prof. Yang Yang works on Solution-processable thin-film electronic devices, which include PV cells, digital storage devices, light-emitting diodes and thin-film transistors, that strive for high performance at extremely low cost.