MIT researchers have showcased the thinnest, lightest solar cells produced till date. Though its development into a commercial product could take years, the laboratory proof-of-concept has shown a latest approach to creating solar cells that may help power the next generation of handy electronic devices.

The latest process has been explained in a paper, published in the journal Organic Electronics, by MIT professor Vladimir Bulovic, research scientist Annie Wang, and doctoral student Joel Jean.

Bulovic said that the key to the new approach is to come up with the solar cell, the substrate that backs it, and an over coating to protect it from the environment, all in a single process.

The substrate has been created in place and doesn’t need to be handled, washed, or taken off from the vacuum at the time of fabrication, so minimizes exposure to dust or other contaminants that may degrade the performance of the cell.

Bulovic said that the innovative step is the insight that you can come up with the substrate while growing the device. In the initial proof-of-concept experiment, researchers have used a common flexible polymer known as parylene both as the substrate and the over coating, and a DBP named organic material as the primary light-absorbing layer.

Parylene is plastic coating mainly used to shield and protect implanted biomedical devices and printed circuit boards from environmental effects. Parylene is commercially available.

The entire process held in a vacuum chamber at room temperature. The process didn’t use any solvents, unlike conventional solar-cell manufacturing, which needs elevated temperatures and harsh chemicals. In this case, established vapor deposition techniques were used to grow both the substrate and the solar cell.