#Nano-dunes with the ion beam Many semiconductor devices in modern technology--from integrated circuits to solar cells and LEDS--are based on nanostructures.
Better Solar cells Though the Nature Communications study focused on just one organic material, phthalocyanine, the new research provides a powerful way to explore many other types of organic materials, too--with particular promise for improved solar cells.
A recent U s. Department of energy report identified one of the fundamental bottlenecks to improved solar power technologies as"determining the mechanisms by
#Engineers invent transparent coating that cools solar cells to boost efficiency Every time you stroll outside you emit energy into the universe:
Their invention shunts away the heat generated by a solar cell under sunlight and cools it in a way that allows it to convert more photons into electricity.
The hotter solar cells get, the less efficient they become at converting the photons in light into useful electricity.
patterned silica material laid on top of a traditional solar cell. The material is transparent to the visible sunlight that powers solar cells,
but captures and emits thermal radiation, or heat, from infrared rays.""Solar arrays must face the sun to function,
The Stanford team tested their technology on a custom-made solar absorber--a device that mimics the properties of a solar cell without producing electricity--covered with a micron-scale pattern designed to maximize the capability to dump heat
Their experiments showed that the overlay allowed visible light to pass through to the solar cells, but that it also cooled the underlying absorber by as much as 55 degrees Fahrenheit.
Revealed by a brand new lectron camera, one of the world speediest, this unprecedented level of detail could guide researchers in the development of efficient solar cells, fast and flexible electronics and high-performance chemical catalysts.
Understanding these dynamic ripples could provide crucial clues for the development of next-generation solar cells, electronics and catalysts.
and could be used in future solar cells. Because of this strong interaction with light, researchers also think they may be able to manipulate the material properties with light pulses. o engineer future devices,
and believe that a rectenna with commercial potential may be available within a year. e could ultimately make solar cells that are twice as efficient at a cost that is ten times lower,
or other material that would produce flexible solar cells or photodetectors. Cola sees the rectennas built so far as simple proof of principle.
In fact, it could literally reshape solar cells. Scientists could potentially create ight antennasthin, pole-like devices that could absorb light from all directions,
Devices such as solar cells and photosensors work better if the crystals grow vertically because vertical crystals can be packed more densely in the semiconductor,
#Next-generation perovskite solar cells made stable by metal oxide andwichucla professor Yang Yang, member of the California Nanosystems Institute, is renowned a world innovator of solar cell technology
whose team in recent years has developed next-generation solar cells constructed of perovskite, which has remarkable efficiency converting sunlight to electricity.
Despite this success, the delicate nature of perovskite a very light, flexible, organic-inorganic hybrid material stalled further development toward its commercialized use.
This is a significant advance toward stabilizing perovskite solar cells. Their new cell construction extends the cell effective life in air by more than 10 times, with only a marginal loss of efficiency converting sunlight to electricity.
Postdoctoral scholar Jingbi You and graduate student Lei Meng from the Yang Lab were the lead authors on the paper. here has been much optimism about perovskite solar cell technology
In less than two years, the Yang team has advanced perovskite solar cell efficiency from less than 1 percent to close to 20 percent. ut its short lifespan was a limiting factor we have been trying to improve on since developing perovskite cells with high efficiency.
Endowed Chair in Engineering at UCLA, said there are several factors that lead to quick deterioration in normally layered perovskite solar cells.
The next step for the Yang team is to make the metal oxide layers more condensed for better efficiency and seal the solar cell for even longer life with no loss of efficiency.
The ability to mold inorganic nanoparticles out of materials such as gold and silver in precisely designed 3d shapes is a significant breakthrough that has the potential to advance laser technology microscopy solar cells electronics environmental testing disease
and replace them with synthetic components to create a new generation of solar cells. Evans concludes:"
#New Technique Increases Nanofiber Production Rate Fourfold Nanofibers polymer filaments only a couple of hundred nanometers in diameter have a huge range of potential applications, from solar cells
Tangled tale Nanofibers are useful for any application that benefits from a high ratio of surface area to volume solar cells, for instance,
even at the extremely low power levels characteristic of tiny solar cells. Previous experimental ultralow-power converters had efficiencies of only 40 or 50 percent.
Where its predecessors could use a solar cell to either charge a battery or directly power a device,
Ups and downs The circuit chief function is to regulate the voltages between the solar cell, the battery,
and falls depends on the voltage generated by the solar cell, which is highly variable. So the timing of the switch throws has to vary, too.
whose selection is determined by the solar cell voltage. Once again, when the capacitor fills, the switches in the inductor path are flipped. n this technology space,
Scientists are also working on solar cells based on quantum dots, which rely on the dotsability to convert light into electrons.
#New Technology Could Transform Solar energy Storage Chemists at UCLA have developed a new technology that is capable of storing solar energy for up to several weeks an advance that could change the way scientists think about designing solar cells.
A new technology developed by chemists at UCLA is capable of storing solar energy for up to several weeks an advance that could change the way scientists think about designing solar cells.
To capture energy from sunlight, conventional rooftop solar cells use silicon, a fairly expensive material. There is currently a big push to make lower-cost solar cells using plastics
rather than silicon, but today plastic solar cells are relatively inefficient, in large part because the separated positive and negative electric charges often recombine before they can become electrical energy. odern plastic solar cells don have well-defined structures like plants do
The researchers are already working on how to incorporate the technology into actual solar cells. Yves Rubin, a UCLA professor of chemistry and another senior co-author of the study,
even when using systems called solar fuel cells solar cells immersed in the water it splitting. Now researchers from Eindhoven University of Technology in The netherlands and the Dutch Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM) report in the 17 july issue of Nature Communications that they have improved tenfold the hydrogen producing capacity of a solar fuel cell.
#Solar cells Could Capture Infrared Rays for More Power Nanocrystals and organic materials convert low energy photons into visible light that a solar cell can capture.
Cadmium selenide nanocrystals with one kind of organic coating left produced violet light, while cadmium selenide nanocrystals with another type of organic coating right produced green.
Solar cell efficiencies could increase by 30 percent or more with new hybrid materials that make use of the infrared portion of the solar spectrum,
solar infrared rays normally passes right through the photovoltaic materials that make up today's solar cells.
and an equal number of even smaller solar cells, each the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen.
This year it demonstrated that it could use a version of its technology to make a novel kind of solar cell that,
some believe, could convert half of the energy in sunlight into electricity, about three times better than conventional solar cells.
Semprius must scale up the production of its solar cells significantly. Right now it can make enough solar units to produce six megawatts of power per year,
The idea is that you can increase the amount of energy any solar cell gathers by putting lenses over the cell to focus light into it.
Existing versions of this technology might use a lens with an area of about 400 square centimeters and focus it on a one-centimeter solar cell, for a concentration ratio of 400.
Semprius stamp makes it possible to make arrays of solar cells that are far smaller and thinner than the ones that had been used in concentrating photovoltaics.
For the concentrating technology to work the solar cells need to be picked up and arranged in an array
and transfer thousands of the tiny solar cells at once without breaking them, completely changing the economics of using small solar cells.
Small cells have many advantages; because they require little material, they can be made of expensive types of semiconductors that are far more efficient than silicon.
and real estate to generate the same amount of power as a typical solar cell. These advantages,
New ways of manufacturing silicon wafers, the most expensive part of a solar cell, could cut wafer costs in half
New solar cell designs are edging up their efficiencies. Such advances might eventually make solar power cheaper than fossil fuels, even without Semprius technology.
including jobs that involve handling delicate materials such as thin semiconductors for new, advanced solar cells. But the technology also offers a cheap way to pick up just about anythingabric, bags of chips, 50-pound boxes of paper, single pieces of paper, mobile phones.
relatively high-voltage solar cells to generate the needed electricity, along with inexpensive new catalyst materials based on nickel and iron for two electrodesne produces hydrogen
The solar cells use an inexpensive and easily manufactured material known as perovskite, which has been generating excitement in the research community
but consider that most solar cells convert only 16 percent of the energy in sunlight into electricity,
For one thing, it only lasts a few hours before the solar cell performance quickly drops off. Researchers aren sure why perovskite materials degrade quickly
or improving the way the solar cells are sealed against the elements. Researchers recently demonstrated a perovskite solar cell that lasted over a month
#The Coming Era Of Self-Assembly Using Microfluidic Devices When it comes to building microscopic devices,
When experts talk about future solar cells they usually bring up exotic materials and physical phenomena. In the short term however a much simpler approach stacking different semiconducting materials that collect different frequencies of light could provide nearly as much of an increase in efficiency as any radical new design.
The startup Semprius based in Durham North carolina says it can produce very efficient stacked solar cells quickly
Conventional solar cells convert less than 25 percent of the energy in sunlight into electricity. Semprius has come up with three key innovations:
In its designs Semprius uses tiny individual solar cells each less than a millimeter across. That reduces costs for cooling
Semprius has demonstrated cells made of three semiconductor materials stacked on top of a fourth solar cell that would not have been compatible otherwise.
In addition to being fast and precise the approach also makes it possible to reuse the expensive crystalline wafers that multijunction solar cells are grown on.
cheaper solar cells. But this is usually done with lenses or mirrors, which must be moved precisely as the sun advances across the sky to ensure that concentrated sunlight remains focused on the cells.
where a small solar cell is mounted to generate electricity. As the day goes on, the beam of light from the lenses moves and the material adapts,
a program director at ARPA-E, says the main remaining challenge is increasing the amount of sunlight that makes it to the solar cells,
or reflected en route to the solar cells r
#Cheap and Nearly Unbreakable Sapphire Screens Come into View This fall, rumor has it, Apple will start selling iphones with a sapphire screen that is just about impossible to scratch.
so it could also lead to better and cheaper electronics and solar cells. Sapphire, or crystalline aluminum oxide, is made in nature
#Sharp Demonstrates Ultra-Efficient Solar cells The best solar cells convert less than one-third of the energy in sunlight into electricity
If it can be commercialized it would double the amount of power a solar cell can generate offering a way to make solar power far more economical.
when sunlight strikes a solar cell it produces some very high-energy electrons but within a few trillionths of a second those electrons shed most of their energy as waste heat.
The Sharp team found a way to extract these electrons before they give up that energy thereby increasing the voltage output of their prototype solar cell.
In theory solar cells that exploit this technique could reach efficiencies over 60 percent. The approach is one of several that could someday break open the solar industry
High-efficiency solar cells would lower the cost of installation which today is often more expensive than the cells themselves.
and figuring out how to make them with high precision (see Capturing More Light with a Single Solar cell and Nanocharging Solar).
which create a shortcut for high-energy electrons to move out of the solar cell. Another way to achieve ultra-high efficiencies now is by stacking up different kinds of solar cells (see Exotic Highly Efficient Solar cells May Soon Get Cheaper)
but doing so is very expensive. Meanwhile MIT researchers are studying the transient behavior of electrons in organic materials to find inexpensive ways to make ultra-efficient solar cells.
Each of the alternative approaches is at an early stage. James Dimmock the senior researchers who developed the new device at Sharp says he expects that his technique will initially be used to help boost the efficiency of conventional devices not to create new ones s
Silevo isn the only company to produce high-efficiency solar cells. A version made by Panasonic is just as efficient,
and Sunpower makes ones that are significantly more so (see ecord-Breaking Solar cell Points the Way the Cheaper Solar power.
The included solar cells all act independently to capture and store energy for each individual LED.
#Israel-based Utilight develops revolutionary new technique for 3d printing solar cells With the rise of various products that are aimed at creating
the engineers at Utilight have been actively developing a new type of additive manufacturing technology called Pattern Transfer Printing (PTP) that allows for the immediate implementation in the photovoltaic metallization process of c-Si solar cells.
Ultimately, the new technique is capable of increasing the efficiency of solar cells while simultaneously reducing the photovoltaic manufacturing costs.
Although the company itself is relatively young in the scope of solar cell technologies, its executive members bring a wealth of experience from material science, physics and engineering backgrounds;
Although the solar cell industry may not be familiar to many, it is expected to grow exponentially as we continue to seek out alternative
(our) innovative technology aims to increase solar cell efficiency and reduce material use, reducing the cost per watt of solar electricity,
adds the company. s today leading photovoltaic cell manufacturers have reached the limits of conventional screen printing metallization processes for solar cells;
#Paper-thin 3d printed solar cells to provide affordable electricity for unlit rural areas Jun 29, 2015 By Simonthanks to a recent surge of interest surrounding various alternative energy sources and technologies including Elon musk announcement of a Tesla home battery,
Now, a new printed solar cell technology that only requires the use of existing industrial-size 3d printers
which is capable of producing printed solar cells that are both flexible and inexpensive to transport,
According to Scott Watkins, the director of the unit for overseas business at Korean firm Kyung-In Synthetic, these 3d printed solar cells have already been used in India. e witnessed firsthand how the technology has enabled urban poor communities in India
A 10×10 cm solar cell film is enough to generate as much as 10-50 watts per square meter. atkins recently spoke about the technology during the Smart Villages session of the World Conference of Science Journalists in Seoul, South korea.
could be solar cells, printed circuit boards, low-emissivity coatings, or transparent electronics. A microchannel applicator used in the system will allow the creation of smaller, more complex electronics features.
to build better or more efficient solar cells, or make better and more economical use of fossil fuels,
#Gallium Phosphide Nanowires Significantly Increase Efficiency of Solar fuel Cells The solar cell made of gallium phosphide (Gap) generates clean fuel hydrogen gas from Water gap is a compound containing phosphide and gallium which also acts
the efficiency of the solar cell can be increased tenfold without using considerable amounts of costly material.
The electricity thus generated by the solar cell can be utilized to trigger chemical reactions. If these reactions produce fuel, then solar fuels would become a promising alternative for polluting fuels.
when a huge flat surface is present as that utilized in Gap solar cells. The team resolved this issue by fabricating a network of small Gap nanowires
even at the extremely low power levels characteristic of tiny solar cells. Previous ultralow-power converters that used the same approach had efficiencies of only 40 or 50 percent.
Where most of its ultralow-power predecessors could use a solar cell to either charge a battery
Ups and downsthe circuit chief function is to regulate the voltages between the solar cell the battery,
and falls depends on the voltage generated by the solar cell, which is highly variable. So the timing of the switch throws has to vary, too.
whose selection is determined by the solar cell voltage. Once again, when the capacitor fills, the switches in the inductor path are flipped. n this technology space,
The integration of magnetoelectronics with ultrathin functional elements such as solar cells light-emitting diodes transistors as well as temperature and tactile sensor arrays will enable autonomous and versatile smart systems with a multitude of sensing
the solar cell obtains adequate light, even in the darkness of winter, said Fraunhofer. On the chip are magnetic
was to deposit a solar cell directly on a die, over the uneven metal layers. his is had why we to find a means of filling in
and evening the surface prior to coating it with the solar cell, said engineer Dr Gerd vom Bögel,
Secondly, the chip needed to run from a tiny solar cell, in the winter, and through the night. y keeping both processor and chip extremely small, the latter is extremely frugal.
which approached IMS for on-die solar cells two years ago. Solchip has plans to use them to monitor street traffic
or black, solar cell. They accomplished this by overlaying a thin, passivating film on the nanostructures by a process known as atomic layer deposition,
Black solar cells work really well on cloudy days. his is an advantage particularly in the north,
And thanks to the inherent properties of black solar cells, they can capture solar radiation at low angles,
and today most solar cells are based on silicon. In theory, the success with simple transistors implies that this material could also help continue advances in solar cells.
What most exciting here after graphene has saturated headline space for so long, is that there was only a few months needed to take this purely theoretical 2d substance from a computer simulation to practical, working transistors.
Nanowires are extremely thin nanocrystal threads used in the development of new electronic components like transistors and solar cells.
allowing solar cells that use it to trap light even when it's coming from very low angles.
This could be a good way to increase the yield of solar cells throughout the day
as they don't need the antireflection coatings used by many other types of solar cells. The main issue that has stifled the progress of black silicon cells is something known as carrier recombination.
When a photon hits a silicon atom inside a solar cell, the excess energy frees up an electron that is later used to generate electricity.
#New energy cell can store up solar energy for release at night A photoelectrochemical cell (PEC) is a special type of solar cell that gathers the Sun's energy
Both have been utilized individually by researchers to boost sunlight conversion to electrical current in solar cells, and to increase the efficacy of electrically-generated light.
Nanofibers-polymer filaments only a couple of hundred nanometers in diameter have a huge range of potential applications, from solar cells to water filtration to fuel cells.
where you would be able to individually control each emitter to print deposits of nanofibers. angled talenanofibers are useful for any application that benefits from a high ratio of surface area to volume solar cells, for instance,
Nanofibers-polymer filaments only a couple of hundred nanometers in diameter have a huge range of potential applications, from solar cells to water filtration to fuel cells.
where you would be able to individually control each emitter to print deposits of nanofibers. angled talenanofibers are useful for any application that benefits from a high ratio of surface area to volume solar cells, for instance,
A new technology developed by chemists at UCLA is capable of storing solar energy for up to several weeks-an advance that could change the way scientists think about designing solar cells.
To capture energy from sunlight, conventional rooftop solar cells use silicon, a fairly expensive material. There is currently a big push to make lower-cost solar cells using plastics
rather than silicon, but today plastic solar cells are relatively inefficient, in large part because the separated positive and negative electric charges often recombine before they can become electrical energy. odern plastic solar cells don have well-defined structures like plants do
The researchers are already working on how to incorporate the technology into actual solar cells. Yves Rubin, a UCLA professor of chemistry and another senior co-author of the study,
A new technology developed by chemists at UCLA is capable of storing solar energy for up to several weeks-an advance that could change the way scientists think about designing solar cells.
To capture energy from sunlight, conventional rooftop solar cells use silicon, a fairly expensive material. There is currently a big push to make lower-cost solar cells using plastics
rather than silicon, but today plastic solar cells are relatively inefficient, in large part because the separated positive and negative electric charges often recombine before they can become electrical energy. odern plastic solar cells don have well-defined structures like plants do
The researchers are already working on how to incorporate the technology into actual solar cells. Yves Rubin, a UCLA professor of chemistry and another senior co-author of the study,
#Reshaping the solar spectrum to turn light to electricity Researchers find a way to use the infrared region of the sun's spectrum to make solar cells more efficient.
When it comes to installing solar cells, labor cost and the cost of the land to house them constitute the bulk of the expense.
The solar cells made often of silicon or cadmium telluride rarely cost more than 20 percent of the total cost.
best achieved if each solar cell could be coaxed to generate more power. A huge gain in this direction has now been made by a team of chemists at the University of California
spectrum passes right through the photovoltaic materials that make up today solar cells, explained Christopher Bardeen, a professor of chemistry.
an assistant professor of chemistry. his is lost energy, no matter how good your solar cell. The hybrid material we have come up with first captures two infrared photons that would normally pass right through a solar cell without being converted to electricity,
then adds their energies together to make one higher energy photon. This upconverted photon is absorbed readily by photovoltaic cells,
generating electricity from light that normally would be wasted. ardeen added that these materials are essentially eshaping the solar spectrumso that it better matches the photovoltaic materials used today in solar cells.
providing a route to higher efficiencies. his 550-nanometer light can be absorbed by any solar cell material,
#Reshaping the solar spectrum to turn light to electricity Researchers find a way to use the infrared region of the sun's spectrum to make solar cells more efficient.
When it comes to installing solar cells, labor cost and the cost of the land to house them constitute the bulk of the expense.
The solar cells made often of silicon or cadmium telluride rarely cost more than 20 percent of the total cost.
best achieved if each solar cell could be coaxed to generate more power. A huge gain in this direction has now been made by a team of chemists at the University of California
spectrum passes right through the photovoltaic materials that make up today solar cells, explained Christopher Bardeen, a professor of chemistry.
an assistant professor of chemistry. his is lost energy, no matter how good your solar cell. The hybrid material we have come up with first captures two infrared photons that would normally pass right through a solar cell without being converted to electricity,
then adds their energies together to make one higher energy photon. This upconverted photon is absorbed readily by photovoltaic cells,
generating electricity from light that normally would be wasted. ardeen added that these materials are essentially eshaping the solar spectrumso that it better matches the photovoltaic materials used today in solar cells.
providing a route to higher efficiencies. his 550-nanometer light can be absorbed by any solar cell material,
A new technique invented at Caltech to produce graphene--a material made up of an atom-thick layer of carbon--at room temperature could help pave the way for commercially feasible graphene-based solar cells and light-emitting diodes, large-panel displays, and flexible electronics."
Another possibility would be to grow large sheets of graphene that can be used as a transparent conducting electrode for solar cells and display panels."
Dual-type nanowire arrays can be used in applications such as LEDS and solar cells February 25th, 2015qd Vision Named Edison Award Finalist for Innovative Color IQ Quantum dot Technology
New cheap and efficient electrode for splitting water March 18th, 2015a new method for making perovskite solar cells March 16th, 2015uc research partnership explores how to best harness solar power March 2nd,
2015researchers enable solar cells to use more sunlight February 25th, 201 2
#Rice fine-tunes quantum dots from coal: Rice university scientists gain control of electronic, fluorescent properties of coal-based graphene Abstract:
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