Document Type

Article

Rights

Available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 4.0 International Licence

Publication Details

Electronics Letters, vol. 47, no. 2, pp. 85-86, 2011

Abstract

An optically transparent microstrip patch mounted on the surface of a commercially available solar module is proposed. The patch comprises a thin sheet of clear polyester with a conductive coating. The amorphous silicon solar cells in the module are used as both photovoltaic generator and antenna ground plane. The proposed structure provides a peak gain of 3.96 dBi in the 3.4-3.8 GHz range without significantly compromising the light transmission in the module. A comparison between copper and transparent conductors is made in terms of antenna and solar performance. The proposed technique is considerably simpler that previous integration approaches.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1049/el.2010.7397

Funder

Science Foundation Ireland


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