The Green Optimistic

By Ovidiu on October 10th, 2008

Nicole Kuepper, a 23 year-old Australian scientist has invented a method of making cheap solar cells out of simple materials, that any DIY-er could find in his home.

She has painted a silicon wafer with something like nail polish, then she put the wafer in a modified inkjet printer, and printed a high resolution pattern with a solution that dilutes the nail polish, like acetone. After that, she metalized the entire thing with an aluminum spray and put it into an oven at about 550°F (more or less the temperature at which you bake the pizza), and voilà! There’s the world’s cheapest silicon solar cell!

Watch the video, and if you find out more about her invention of the patterns involved, remember to place a comment here on GreenOptimistic.com, so we can find out how to do that ourselves.