Posts Tagged efficient solar cell

Atwater’s Light-Splitting Solar Cell Could Be 50% Efficient

Posted by Ovidiu Sandru in Solar Power on April 24, 2013

The ability to dissociate light into fundamental colors could make today’s solar panels 50 percent efficient. If you compare this figure to the 20 percent efficiency found in many solar cells on the market, that’s a game-changer. Harry Atwater, a professor of materials science and applied physics at Caltech thinks he has the solution. The [...]

Nanowire-Embedded Quantum Dots Break Solar Cell Efficiency Records

Posted by Mila Luleva in Solar Power on February 13, 2013

An international team of scientists from Sweden, Switzerland, Spain and the US established a process through which quantum dots can self-assemble at optimal locations in nanowires. This discovery might just be the key to improving not only solar cells, but also quantum computing and lighting devices. A press release by NREL from last week, stated [...]

Low-Temp Meltable Alloy Increases Solar Cell Efficiency

Posted by Mila Luleva in Solar Power on February 11, 2013

The field of solar power and photovoltaic cells has developed enormously over the past decade, providing opportunities for even greater innovations. One of these is presented in the latest issue of Advanced Materials, a team from the Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research in Bangalore. The researchers proposed using low temperature meltable alloys to [...]

New Multi-junction Solar Cell Breaks Efficiency Records

Posted by Mila Luleva in Solar Power on January 15, 2013

The 50 percent conversion efficiency barrier in multi-junction photovoltaic development has the potential to be broken with the novel triple-junction solar cell proposed by researchers at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory-the Electronics Technology and Science Division, in collaboration with the Imperial College London and MicroLink Devices, Inc., Niles, Ill.. According to Robert Walters, Ph.D., NRL [...]

Learning From Deep-Sea Bacteria to Increase Solar Panel Efficiency

Posted by Benji Jerew in Solar Power on January 7, 2013

Photovoltaic [PV] solar panels are a really green way to generate electricity. They are simple, have zero emissions, and last for decades. They also take up space, and the more electricity required, the more space they use, and not everyone has a whole lot of space they’d like to give up for solar panel installations. [...]

Record Breaking Solar Cell Efficiency of 44% Achieved at NREL

Posted by Mila Luleva in Solar Power on December 29, 2012

The world record for energy efficiency of photovoltaic cells has been broken again. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), together with their partner Solar Junction, reported the incredible 44% efficiency achieved through improvement of the already existing multi-junction PV cells. The layered semiconductors used in the cells were previously optimized to capture various wavelengths of [...]

Triple-Junction Compound Solar Cell Gives Record Conversion Efficiency

Posted by Mila Luleva in Solar Power on December 6, 2012

A triple-junction compound solar cell, with three stacked photo-absorption layers, has the highest conversion efficiency. This incredible achievement came from a research and development initiative at Sharp Corporation. It is promoted by Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) on the theme of “R&D on Innovative Solar Cells. The new world record of [...]

Revolutionary Solar Cell Absorbs More Sunlight, More Efficiently

Posted by Janina Lazo in Solar Power on November 29, 2012

Based on a computer model developed by MIT engineers, it is possible to capture a broad spectrum of sunlight using a very thin film (about 6 Angstroms) of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) that is poked with a microscopic needle at the center, creating a field of varying (non-uniform) elastic strain, and thus, varying band gap across [...]

Side-Illuminated Solar Cell Boosts Energy Efficiency

Posted by Mila Luleva in Solar Power on November 10, 2012

Researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) have created new concentrator solar cells that have a solar conversion efficiency of more than 40% and intensities of 10,000 suns. This is almost as much as the most ultra-efficient photovoltaics available on the market today. Prof. Jeffrey Gordon, a member of the Department of Solar Energy [...]

Malachite’s Solar Cell 38% Efficient, at Least in Theory

Posted by Janina Lazo in Solar Power on November 1, 2012

Malachite Technologies, a solar cell startup company based in San Francisco, California, aims to improve solar cell’s efficiency by coating gallium arsenide on silicon. Gallium arsenide, a III-V semiconductor that has six times higher electron mobility than silicon, allows a faster operation and lower thermal noise. Based on Malachite’s calculations, the silicon/gallium-arsenide tandem solar cell [...]

World’s “Blackest” Solar Cell Absorbs 99.7% Sunlight

Posted by Janina Lazo in Solar Power on October 31, 2012

Years after attempting to decrease the reflectivity of solar cells even further, Natcore has finally came up with its ‘blackest’ solar cell to date, reflecting only 0.3% of incident of sunlight, without the use of an antireflective coating, but rather, using a cheaper wet chemistry route. This new accomplishment is so good and economical that [...]

Tiny German Photovoltaic Cells Break Efficiency Record

Posted by Mila Luleva in Solar Power on October 29, 2012

A tiny photovoltaic cell brought the 2012 German Environmental Award, the largest award for environmental work given in Europe, to Andreas Bett. Together with his co-workers- Hansjörg Lerchenmüller and Günther Cramer, Bett has spent the last 25 years developing these multi-junction solar cells of the future. What makes these cells special, is their ability to [...]

New Anti-Reflection Coating Increases Solar Cells’ Efficiency

Posted by Mila Luleva in Solar Power on October 27, 2012

One of the disadvantages of solar energy generation is that great amount of light is reflected away by the solar cells, which reduces their efficiency. A new anti-reflection coating, however, might be the link that has been missing. Professor E. Fred Schubert, of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Department of Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering, and his [...]

Solar Cells Could Break 40% Efficiency With Photochemical Upconversion

Posted by Guest Contributor in Solar Power on April 24, 2012

Researchers from the University of Sydney have developed what they term as a “photochemical upconversion” technique to increase the solar cells’ efficiency. This could potentially be up to a record breaking 40%. Even though there has been a continued improvement in the overall efficiency of conventional silicon solar cells in the past few years, and [...]

New Bismuth Selenide Material Enhances Solar Cells’ Heat-Capturing Ability

Posted by Ovidiu Sandru in Solar Power on March 9, 2012

An “exotic” material belonging to a class of materials called “topological insulators” could help solar cells and optical communication devices evolve. A team of scientists from Stanford and SLAC have noticed that ultra-thin sheets of that material remain transparent and highly conductive even in the harshest conditions. To be more precise, the researchers flexed, folded [...]