We demonstrate industrially feasible large‐area solar cells with passivated homogeneous emitter and rear achieving energy conversion efficiencies of up to 19.4% on 125 × 125 mm2 p‐type 2–3 Ω cm boron‐doped Czochralski silicon wafers. Front and rear metal contacts are fabricated by screen‐printing of silver and aluminum paste and firing in a conventional belt furnace. We implement two different dielectric rear surface passivation stacks: (i) a thermally grown silicon dioxide/silicon nitride stack and (ii) an atomic‐layer‐deposited aluminum oxide/silicon nitride stack. The dielectrics at the rear result in a decreased surface recombination velocity of Srear = 70 cm/s and 80 cm/s, and an increased internal IR reflectance of up to 91% corresponding to an improved Jsc of up to 38.9 mA/cm2 and Voc of up to 664 mV. We observe an increase in cell efficiency of 0.8% absolute for the cells compared to 18.6% efficient reference solar cells featuring a full‐area aluminum back surface field. To our knowledge, the energy conversion efficiency of 19.4% is the best value reported so far for large area screen‐printed solar cells. (© 2011 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

New materials have come into focus lately for use as dielectric membranes in dielectric elastomer actuators. They are often characterized under differing conditions and their activation behaviour has mostly been investigated on lab-scale samples. This paper aims to compare the activation behaviour of two promising new materials on a macroscale device. The reference material is VHB 4910 (by 3M), which is compared first with a corrugated silicone with silver electrodes (by PolyPower) and second with interpenetrating polymer network-modified acrylic. The permittivity and the electrical break-down strength were measured. Uniaxial tensile and relaxation tests were also carried out. The activation performance was measured with planar actuators in an isotonic and in an agonist-antagonist hinge configuration. The influence of the material properties on the mechanical performance is calculated with simple modelling.

This work reports on the investigation of VHB 4910 acrylic elastomer insulating and dielectric properties. This material is widely exploited for the realization of actuators with large deformations, dielectric elastomer actuators (DEA), and belongs to the group of so-called electroactive polymers (EAP). Extensive investigations concerning its mechanical properties are available in literature while its electric behavior at working conditions has not received the same level of attention. In this work, the relative permittivity and the volume resistivity have been measured on VHB 4910 membranes under different fixed stretch conditions (k 1 , k 2 ¼ 3, 3.6, 4, 5) using circular gold electrodes sputtered onto both sides of the specimens. The measured values of relative permittivity are in fairly good agreement with the results previously published by other groups. The volume resistivity, at field values close to the operational ones, has shown a fielddependent behavior revealing dissipative properties that should be considered in real applications. Further, measurements on circular actuators verify these findings. Consequences for modeling of VHB 4910 are drawn and new material model parameters proposed to account for the value of relative permittivity at high electric fields.

The acrylic elastomer membrane VHB 4910 is a material widely used for applications as Dielectric Elastomer Actuators DEA. For suitable actuation performance however, it is necessary to pre-strain the very compliant membrane. This reduces the lifetime of DEA due to early failure of the tensioned membrane. Interpenetrating Polymer Network Reinforced Acrylic Elastomers (IPN) are produced by introducing a curable additive into the prestrained acrylic elastomer membrane. While curing at elevated temperature, the additive forms a second polymeric network that supports part of the pre-strain in the acrylic membrane. This leads to a free standing material that combines the actuation performance of pre-strained VHB 4910 with an excellent long-term reliability. This work presents a detailed mechanical characterization of acrylic IPN membranes. To reduce the experimental effort required to characterize the nonlinear elastic behavior, we developed a unique specimen design that enables the assessment of uni-and biaxial stress states within one experiment. Slight changes in the material composition of IPN-membranes lead to substantial variations in their mechanical properties. The extraction of material behavior in different kinematic states within a single sample thus reduces the uncertainty on the determination of constitutive models. An extensive experimental campaign was carried out involving uniaxial and equibiaxial tension and relaxation. Image based local deformation measurements and iterative finite element calculations were applied to derive constitutive model parameters that describe the mechanical response in a wide range of planar strain and strain rate.