Mechanics Design for Stretchable, High Areal Coverage GaAs Solar Module on an Ultrathin Substrate

Abstract

The trench design of substrate together with curvy interconnect formed from buckling provides a solution to stretchable electronics with high areal coverage on an ultrathin substrate, which are critically important for stretchable photovoltaics. In this paper, an improved trench design is proposed and verified by finite element analysis (FEA), through use of a heterogeneous design, to facilitate strain isolation and avoid possible fracture/delamination issue. A serpentine design of interconnect is also devised to offer ∼440% interconnect level stretchability, which is >3.5 times that of previous trench design, and could transform into 20% systemlevel stretchability, even for areal coverage as high as ∼90%.