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DS: Fachverband Dünne Schichten

DS 20: Poster

DS 20.4: Poster

Donnerstag, 12. März 2026, 18:30–20:30, P2

Sputtered germanium absorbers for building-integrated semi-transparent photovoltaics — •Nico Ruskaup¹, Kai Gehrke¹, Stephan Heise², and Martin Vehse¹ — ¹Institut für Vernetzte Energiesysteme, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V., Carl-von-Ossietzky-Straße 15, 26129 Oldenburg — ²Institut für Solarforschung, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V., Carl-von-Ossietzky-Straße 15, 26129 Oldenburg

Architectural glass facades worldwide typically utilize solar-control coatings deposited in inline magnetron sputter coaters to prevent buildings from excess solar heating. To use the electricity-generating potential of these facades, we aim to enable the glass industry to integrate photovoltaic functionality into their glazing using existing production lines. This requires a semi-transparent, fully sputtered thin-film solar cell. As a first step, here we demonstrate sputtered ultrathin germanium absorber layers for semi-transparent solar cells. We compare their optoelectronic properties and their microstructure with established reference layers deposited by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) and identify sputter-process conditions that yield germanium absorbers with PECVD-comparable properties suitable for device integration. We present a sputtered germanium layer built into a solar cell, which delivers a power conversion efficiency of 2.8%. These results demonstrate that sputtered germanium is a viable absorber for thin-film photovoltaics and represent an important step towards an industrially sputtered semi-transparent solar cell for window applications.

Keywords: Thin Film; Photovoltaic; Germanium; Magnetron Sputtering; Renewable Energy