Tandem Solar Cell Absorber Layer Patents: Leaders & White Space 2026
- Filing activity has plateaued, not grown. Filings peaked in 2021 at 6 records and the 2022 midpoint of 5 shows no acceleration since — this is a field holding its position, not expanding it.
- Claim ownership is split across the wafer stack. 50 families sit across H01L semiconductor devices and 18 touch H10K organic-semiconductor claims, meaning absorber-layer rights are being written into two different device architectures at once.
- A small filing bloc moves together. The strongest co-assignee pairs each recur at a count of 5, pointing to a tight research consortium rather than isolated corporate filers.
Filing growth compares 2021 (6 records) with 2024 (4) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field.
What this landscape covers
This review tracks patent families claiming absorber-layer construction in tandem and multijunction solar cells — perovskite-on-silicon stacks, wide-bandgap top-cell materials, and the bandgap-tuning methods that let a top cell and bottom cell share incident light efficiently. The search spans filings from 2015 through the 2026 cut-off, capturing both the early multi-junction III-V lineage and the more recent perovskite-silicon wave.
Coverage centres on core semiconductor-device classifications (H01L) with a meaningful secondary cluster in organic semiconductor claims (H10K), plus a scatter of single-digit filings in adjacent areas like conductors, capacitors and vehicle power control — evidence that absorber-layer IP is mostly being fought over in the device layer, not the periphery.
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Filing trend and technology mix
Fifty patent families anchor this landscape, filed against a search across three IPC groups central to tandem absorber architecture. Recency in the trend line understates true activity, since publication typically lags filing by around 18 months.
A peak that has not been re-tested
Filings rose from zero in 2017 to a peak of 6 in 2021, then held near that level (5 at the 2022 midpoint) without breaking higher. Read the tail years cautiously — the 18-month publication lag means 2025 and 2026 figures are still filling in.
Concentrated in two IPC groups
All 50 records sit in H01L (semiconductor devices), with 18 also touching H10K (organic semiconductors) — the perovskite-organic overlap zone. Everything else — H10P, capacitors, conductors, vehicle hybrid control, pulp compositions — appears at 1-2 records each, marking those as incidental rather than contested ground.
Shares are the percentage of the 50 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Tandem Solar Cell Absorber Layer with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about tandem solar cell absorber layer and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe records other filers cite most
US20180374977A1 — Hybrid tandem solar cell
A tandem solar cell includes a top solar cell and a bottom solar cell. The top solar cell and the bottom solar cell each have a respective front surface and a rear surface, with the respective front surfaces being adapted for facing a radiation source during use. The top solar cell is arranged with its rear surface overlying the front surface of the bottom solar cell. The top solar cell includes a photovoltaic absorber layer with a bandgap greater than that of crystalline silicon. The bottom solar cell includes a crystalline silicon substrate. On at least a portion of the front surface of the bottom solar cell a passivating layer stack is disposed which includes a thin dielectric film and a…Filed by NEDERLANDSE ORGANISATIE VOOR TOEGEPAST-NATUURWETENSCHAPPELIJK ONDERZOEK TNO, published 2018-12-27.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20110065228A1 | Manufacture of thin solar cells based on ink printing technology | 39 |
| 2 | US20180374977A1 | Hybrid tandem solar cell | 36 |
| 3 | US20150207011A1 | Multi-junction photovoltaic cells and methods for forming the same | 34 |
| 4 | WO2017105248A1 | Hybrid tandem solar cell | 22 |
| 5 | WO2017105247A1 | Tandem solar cell and method for manufacturing such a solar cell | 18 |
| 6 | WO2020060487A1 | Solar cell and method for fabricating a solar cell | 14 |
| 7 | CN108604615A | 混合串联太阳能电池 | 13 |
| 8 | WO2019013630A1 | Solar panel with four terminal tandem solar cell arrangement | 12 |
| 9 | EP3945608A1 | Two terminal perovskite/silicon tandem solar cell and associated manufacturing method | 8 |
| 10 | WO2019200327A1 | Highly efficient perovskite/cu(in, ga)se 2 tandem solar cell | 8 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they've had longer to accumulate citations inside this corpus — treat them as a signal of influence on the field, not a ranking of current commercial relevance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the filing pattern tells you
Three structural signals stand out once the raw counts are set against each other: where the claims are being filed, who's filing jointly, and where activity has gone quiet.
Growth has stalled since the 2021 peak
The midpoint year of 2022 logged 5 filings, essentially flat against the 2021 peak of 6. For a technology often described as commercially urgent, the patent record shows consolidation rather than a filing rush.
No single office dominates filing strategy
The United States, European Patent Office and WIPO's PCT route each carry a similar share of filings, with India trailing at 6. That balance suggests filers are pursuing multi-jurisdiction protection rather than concentrating in one home market.
A research consortium files together, repeatedly
The strongest co-assignee links all recur at exactly 5 joint filings each, and all three pairs share one common filer — a pattern consistent with an institutional research partnership rather than scattered joint ventures.
Absorber claims straddle two device families
More than a third of records classified under core semiconductor devices also carry an organic-semiconductor classification, showing perovskite absorber claims are being written to cover both inorganic and organic-hybrid device structures.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to tandem solar cell absorber layer, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is active, and where the momentum has gone
The named leaders in this dataset show zero filings in the latest tracked year across the board — a caution against reading current-year silence as retreat, since publication lag means recent activity is still arriving.
An institutional consortium anchors joint filing
One French research-and-development entity appears in three of the strongest co-assignee pairs, each at a joint-filing count of 5, alongside a national utility and two national research bodies.
TNO holds the most-cited hybrid tandem claim
The Dutch applied-research organisation's hybrid tandem solar cell filing anchors the most-cited cluster in this corpus, establishing early claim language around bandgap-differentiated top/bottom cell pairing.
No leading assignee filed in the latest tracked year
Every organisation named in the recent-momentum data shows zero filings in the most recent year, consistent with either a genuine slowdown or simply publication lag masking filings not yet visible.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) | 0 | — |
| Netherlands Energy Research Foundation (ECN) | 0 | — |
| CHAUDHARI ASHOK | 0 | — |
| L'Air Liquide, Société Anonyme pour l'Étude et l'Exploitation des Procédés Georges Claude | 0 | — |
| Électricité de France (EDF) | 0 | — |
| Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) | 0 | — |
| École Polytechnique | 0 | — |
| INSTITUT PHOTOVOLTA QUE D ILE DE FRANCE (IPVF) | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The landscape data points to specific next steps depending on whether you're clearing a filing path or scouting partners.
Run a freedom-to-operate check on the gate chips
The under-claimed sub-areas above are thin in this corpus, but thin coverage in a 50-family search is not the same as clear. Cross-check any planned claim language against the full assignee set before filing.
Explore in EurekaTrack the consortium's next move
The repeated 5-count co-assignee pairs suggest an active institutional research partnership. Watching their combined output for new filings is a faster early-warning signal than watching any single entity alone.
Set up monitoring in EurekaRe-run the trend once 2025-2026 data settles
Publication lag means the last one to two years of filings are still incomplete in this dataset. A follow-up pull in 12 months will clarify whether the 2021 peak was a plateau or the start of a decline.
Revisit this landscape in EurekaCommon questions on tandem absorber-layer IP
Ownership in this dataset is split between an applied-research organisation (TNO, holder of the most-cited hybrid tandem filing) and a French institutional consortium that files jointly across a utility, a national research centre and an engineering school. No single corporate assignee dominates the full 50-family set; the picture is closer to a handful of research-driven filers with repeat joint filings than one commercial leader. Anyone doing diligence should look at the co-assignee clusters, not just individual company names, since several of the strongest claims are jointly held.
Filing activity peaked in 2021 at 6 records in this corpus and has not exceeded that level since, with the 2022 midpoint at 5. That is a plateau, not growth. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any such trend will look artificially low, so it's worth treating the apparent slowdown as provisional until later data arrives. The underlying signal, though, is that this is a maturing claim space rather than one in an early filing rush.
H01L (semiconductor devices) covers all 50 records in this dataset and should be the starting point for any prior-art search. H10K (organic semiconductors) is the second most relevant, appearing in 18 of the 50 records, reflecting overlap between inorganic perovskite-silicon stacks and organic-hybrid device claims. Everything else — capacitors, conductors, vehicle power control, pulp compositions — shows up at only one or two records and is largely incidental rather than a core search target.
This filing, held by TNO, claims a tandem stack where a wide-bandgap top absorber sits over a crystalline-silicon bottom cell, with a specific passivating layer stack — a thin dielectric film plus an additional layer — at the front surface of the bottom cell. It is the most-cited hybrid tandem filing in this corpus, meaning later filers have repeatedly had to draft around or reference its passivation-stack approach. Anyone claiming a similar top-cell/bottom-cell bandgap pairing with a comparable passivation interface should review this filing's claim scope directly rather than relying on the abstract alone.
Based on filing density in this corpus, graded bandgap interlayers, textured recombination junctions, passivating contact stacks specific to tandem interfaces, ink-printed absorber deposition methods, and hybrid organic-inorganic interconnect approaches all show thinner claim coverage than the core top-cell/bottom-cell bandgap pairing claims. That doesn't guarantee freedom to operate — a 50-family search is not exhaustive — but it does mark these as areas where the dominant players have not yet built dense claim thickets, which is where a well-drafted first claim has more room to stand.
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.