efficient solar cell Archives – The Green Optimistic

Largest Solar Plant Ever Built Under Construction This Year

Annika Tostengard — Thu, 09 Jul 2015 10:59:13 +0000

The largest solar plant ever built is under construction in Oman. Interestingly, the solar panels are being used by an oil rig in order to extract hard-to-extract fossil fuels. The CEO of GreenPoint, which is the company behind this giant undertaking has stated that he expects the new solar panels to reduce natural gas consumption by […]

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Solar Powered Noise Barriers Installed on Dutch Highway

Annika Tostengard — Sun, 05 Jul 2015 04:44:13 +0000

In the Netherlands, new solar powered noise reduction barriers have been installed along the side of the A2 highway. These new solar energy innovations are particularly interesting because the barriers, which are brightly colored and pleasant to look at, will also collect solar energy. The barriers are known as Solar Noise Barriers (SONOB) and their […]

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‘Perovskite’ Material Promises New Highly Efficient and Cheap Solar Cells

Mila Luleva — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 18:09:24 +0000

Researchers from University of Pennsylvania discovered a new material that can double the efficiency of solar cells, and significantly reduce the cost of new solar panels. Perovskite materials have a unique crystalline structure and is made of chemical elements and molecules not seen in nature before. The properties of the material provide the world of […]

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

Ovidiu Sandru — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:35:28 +0000

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 […]

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Nanowire-Embedded Quantum Dots Break Solar Cell Efficiency Records

Mila Luleva — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 20:20:15 +0000

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 […]

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Low-Temp Meltable Alloy Increases Solar Cell Efficiency

Mila Luleva — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 20:03:31 +0000

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 […]

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New Multi-junction Solar Cell Breaks Efficiency Records

Mila Luleva — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 15:39:33 +0000

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 […]

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Learning From Deep-Sea Bacteria to Increase Solar Panel Efficiency

Benji Jerew — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 20:00:53 +0000

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. […]

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Record Breaking Solar Cell Efficiency of 44% Achieved at NREL

Mila Luleva — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 17:53:45 +0000

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 […]

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Triple-Junction Compound Solar Cell Gives Record Conversion Efficiency

Mila Luleva — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 19:25:24 +0000

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 […]

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Revolutionary Solar Cell Absorbs More Sunlight, More Efficiently

Janina Lazo-Cruz — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 13:10:30 +0000

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 […]

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Side-Illuminated Solar Cell Boosts Energy Efficiency

Mila Luleva — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 20:04:00 +0000

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 […]

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

Janina Lazo-Cruz — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 15:55:12 +0000

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 […]

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

Janina Lazo-Cruz — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 05:11:45 +0000

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 […]

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Tiny German Photovoltaic Cells Break Efficiency Record

Mila Luleva — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 19:52:28 +0000

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 […]

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New Anti-Reflection Coating Increases Solar Cells’ Efficiency

Mila Luleva — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 19:59:55 +0000

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 […]

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Solar Cells Could Break 40% Efficiency With Photochemical Upconversion

Guest Contributor — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 16:30:34 +0000

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 […]

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

Ovidiu Sandru — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 12:13:00 +0000

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 […]

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Record-Breaking Efficiency for Polymer Solar Cells Achieved by UC Researchers

Ovidiu Sandru — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 03:03:19 +0000

University of California researchers led by Yang Yang, professor of materials science and engineering, have developed a polymer solar cell that achieves a 10.6 percent efficiency. The discovery comes at less than a year since the same research group reached an 8.6 percent efficiency, in July. So far, polymer solar cells have been traditionally inefficient. Yang’s […]

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New Organic Solar Cell Efficiency Record Obtained by Heliatek

Ovidiu Sandru — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 20:22:18 +0000

A new efficiency record for organic photovoltaic cells has been reached by Heliatek, for the third time in a row. The German company created a cheap solar cell that can convert up to 9.8 percent of the incoming light into electricity. Heliatek’s new solar cell is made from oligomers, and differs from polymer and dye-sensitized […]

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Japanese Green Ferrite Solar Cell 100 Times More Powerful Than Any Silicon-Based

Mike Sandru — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 15:46:32 +0000

A team of professors and students from the Okayama Graduate School of Science and Technology led by Professor Naoshi Ikeda has built a unique solar cell that uses an iron oxide substrate instead of silicon, making the cell not only cheaper, but, as the professor claims, 100 times more powerful than anything based on silicon. […]

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SunPower's Solar Panels Enter The Guinness Book

Ovidiu Sandru — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 19:09:23 +0000

I didn't know the Guiness Book awards solar cell efficiencies lately. This story I read on Cleantechnica tells how SunPower, "the most popular solar panels company in California," got into the Guinness Book for providing people with "the most efficient commercially available photovoltaic modules on the market."

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Startup Company Makes Cheap Solar Panels With a Third The Silicon Needed Normally

Ovidiu Sandru — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 19:28:15 +0000

High performance single-crystalline solar cells have historically been expensive, mostly due to the materials used in the manufacturing process. A Santa Clara, CA, startup company, Crystal Solar, has developed an innovative process of manufacturing solar cells that have the same efficiency but cost a lot less.

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Stanford Researchers Get Threefold Efficiency Gains by Binding Organic Layer to Solar Cells

Ovidiu Sandru — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 16:31:57 +0000

While studying quantum dot solar cells, chemical engineering Professor Stacey Bent and associate Professor Michael McGehee of the department of Materials Science and Engineering coated a titanium dioxide semiconductor in their quantum dot solar cell with a very thin single layer of self-assembling organic molecules.

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Efficiency-Boosting Solar Concentrators from HyperSolar a Step Closer to Commercialization

Ovidiu Sandru — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 19:40:16 +0000

Tuning existing solar cells so they run at their best is the hardest thing to do next to creating new ones, with the most advanced technology to date. HyperSolar, a company specialized in building solar concentrators, has reached that point where they can say they'll be able to develop a commercial product in the following period.

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Singlet Fission Having The Possibility to Increase Solar Cell Efficiency by 35 Percent

Ovidiu Sandru — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 17:17:09 +0000

A molecular system that could be used to enhance the efficiency of solar cells by 35 percent has been recently discovered by NREL and University of Colorado, Boulder (UCB) researchers.

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New Fullerene-Based Transparent Honeycomb Polymers Could Act As Power Generating Windows

Ovidiu Sandru — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 12:14:47 +0000

Nowadays, many researchers search methods of making transparent solar cells that can act both as windows and as solar harvesters. Some of them can even be manufactured relatively cheaply using a technology that can spread them onto large areas.

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Electrowetting Solar Cells Use Liquids to Focus Light Onto Them, Eliminating Expensive Mechanics

Ovidiu Sandru — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 08:54:12 +0000

Solar panels, throughout their entire existence, have had the same issue over and over again: once the Sun's light began to hit them with an angle, they became inefficient, so fixed solar panels were only great at noon. Soon after people realized that, they began constructing all sorts of contraptions that would modify the panels' position so to face the Sun directly.

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Nanoscale Thin Film Solar Cell Absorbs 12 Times More Light Than Macro-Sized Counterparts

Ovidiu Sandru — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 05:59:12 +0000

Light behaves differently in macro- and nano- scale environments, and this could be a starting point for those researchers who want to improve the solar cells' efficiency. It was a starting point for some Stanford engineers, who found out that light ricocheting inside an ultra-thin polymer film solar cell behaves differently than if the film wasn't so thin. The difference is enormous.

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Sharp Breaks New Record With Its Concentrated Photovoltaic Cells

Ovidiu Sandru — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 17:24:22 +0000

Sharp has worked closely with the University of Tokyo, and aims breaking the record again with 45% by 2015 and even to reach 50% by 2025. The company says that at 45% the cost of solar will finally reach that of nuclear and thermal power plants.

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Zinc Oxide Solar Cells Receiving 8 Percent Boost With Food Dyes

Ovidiu Sandru — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 16:53:57 +0000

Zinc oxide-based solar cells have just received an innovation from an Indian scientist, Ram Mehra of Sharda University in Greater Noida, India. He claims boosting the capacity of zinc oxide fuel cells and making them capture more of the incident light by using a blended mixture of common dyes, regularly used in food and medical industries.

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Self-Repairing, Leaf-Mimicking Solar Cells Invented by MIT Scientists

Ovidiu Sandru — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 09:33:49 +0000

A new and effective way of harnessing solar power comes from the researchers at MIT. Once again trying to mimic the way green plants work, the scientists now have a different approach, pointing to the fact that, otherwise invisible, the effects of sunlight over solar cells are often damaging.

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New Approach Involving Changing The Light's Frequency Makes Solar Cells More Efficient

Ovidiu Sandru — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 19:32:01 +0000

Usually, solar cells only capture a very tight frequency spectrum of light to transform it into electricity. Scientists have tried hard to make the solar cells from different materials, but with little success or at high costs, at least for the moment. The University of Cantabria along with The Construction Unit at Tecnalia, a Spanish corporation, have another approach towards making solar cells capture the light better.

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Stromatolites From Australia Give Clues on Infrared Light Harvesting for Solar Cells

Ovidiu Sandru — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 07:39:44 +0000

If we learned to fly from birds, and to swim from fish, then why shouldn't we learn to extract our energy like plants do? The Australian Shark Bay gives us a clue on how we could.

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Magic Sticker Makes Solar Cells Up to 12 Percent More Powerful

Ovidiu Sandru — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 05:56:10 +0000

Genie Lens Technologies has developed the easiest solution yet: a sticker that applied to the solar cell, will direct the incoming light onto the light-sensitive surface, greatly reducing reflections and improving the efficiency.

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How Scientists Made Moulds From Blowflies' Eyes And Used Them in Solar Cells

Ovidiu Sandru — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:39:55 +0000

Along with butterflies and moths, whose eyes have inspired scientists to build more efficient solar cells, a particular type of fly (the blowfly) has been discovered to have the right properties that would make us harvest the sun more efficiently.

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Specially Shaped Nanopillars Make Solar Cells Absorb 99% of Light and Use 99% Less Silicon

Ovidiu Sandru — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 19:32:36 +0000

To increase the light absorption of solar cells, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley have perfected a nanostructure that could make up cheaper and more efficient solar cells and light detectors. Their structures absorb 99 percent of visible light and use 1 percent of the silicon semiconductor needed for flat crystalline silicon solar cells.

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New Manufacturing Technology Promises to Improve CIGS Solar Cells' Efficiency

Ovidiu Sandru — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 20:13:40 +0000

When it comes to power, everybody thinks about money and how we should make power-generating devices like solar cells become more efficient (read: more stuff for the same money and size). Thin film solar cells are yet another competitor to classic ones, and attract customers through the fact that they're thin, flexible and cheap. And they're also pretty inefficient (20% at most).

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Delft Researcher Modifies Amorphous Silicon Solar Cells' Production Line to Raise Efficiency

Ovidiu Sandru — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 17:47:08 +0000

Amorphous silicon solar cells lose their efficiency during the first hours of sunlight exposure, because of the phenomenon called the Staebler-Wronski effect, which has not yet been fully explained by science. After several hours of sunlight, these types of solar cells lose about a third of their efficiency, from 10 to 7 percent.

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New Organic Framework for More Efficient Graetzel Solar Cells Discovered

Ovidiu Sandru — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:50:29 +0000

Scientists from Cornell University have unveiled a basic process that could give solar cells a boost in efficiency and a drop in price. The process employs molecules typically used in coloring blue jeans and in ink dyes. Their purpose if to build an organic framework that could serve as a building block for cheaper and flexible solar cells.

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Amazing 35% Efficiency of Multi-Band Thin Film Solar Cells Demonstrated

Ovidiu Sandru — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 09:51:59 +0000

Yet another solar cell breakthrough comes from RoseStreet Labs Energy, Inc (RSLE), who announces a new kind of multiband photovoltaic cell with three distinct light absorption regions, all integrated onto a single-layered thin film. The discovery is based on IBand, a technology proprietary to RSLE and is the first intermediate band solar cell prototyped in a laboratory.

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Nano-Sized Solar Cells Inspired by Coaxial Cables Developed by Boston College Researchers

Ovidiu Sandru — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 14:41:16 +0000

To make thin film solar cells have a higher efficiency than any of the previously experimented models, some Boston College researchers propose using nano-scale solar cells inspired by the working principle of coaxial cables. There's a so-called "thick & thin" issue in making thin solar cells, which states that a solar cell has to be thick enough to collect light in sufficient amounts, and at the same time it needs to be thin enough to extract current from it.

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New Layering Technology Makes Ultra-Efficient Solar Cells Available Not Only for Satellites

Ovidiu Sandru — Thu, 27 May 2010 14:37:43 +0000

Silicon is hardly the most efficient material for use in solar cells, but it is used because it's cheaper to make silicon solar cells. Gallium arsenide, for example, is a much more efficient semiconductor than silicon, but has a high manufacturing cost. Now, a team of scientists from the University of Illionis, devised a technology that builds gallium arsenide solar cells in a much cheaper fashion, making them more cost-efficient.

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Close Competition for Most Efficient Concentrator Solar Cells from U.S.-Based Spire Corporation

Ovidiu Sandru — Wed, 26 May 2010 20:50:07 +0000

Spire Semiconductor, a subsidiary of Spire Corporation based in Massachusetts, has announced that they have matched world's record 41.1 efficiency for a concentrator solar cell (the sources don't mention it, but that's probably the one achieved by Fraunhofer researchers we talked about a week ago).

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Fraunhofer Researchers Developing 41.1% Efficient Solar Panels

Ovidiu Sandru — Thu, 20 May 2010 18:20:59 +0000

They used Fresnel lenses situated 10 cm apart from stacked layers of solar cells. The metamorphic triple-junction solar cells consist of gallium indium phosphide, gallium indium arsenide and germanium semiconductors. The efficiency of these cells is dazzling: 41.1 percent - higher than ever before. The two scientists even for the 2010 Joseph von Fraunhofer Prize.

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Optical Fibers Mounted Upright on Organic Solar Cells Doubling Their Efficiency

Ovidiu Sandru — Fri, 14 May 2010 14:46:05 +0000

Right now organic solar cells, although cheap, are too inefficient to compete with silicon-based ones. A team of researchers from Wake Forest University in North Carolina have developed a practical method of doubling the efficiency of organic (or dye-sensitized) solar cells by adding a layer of upright optical fibers acting as sunlight traps.

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Among Many Uses Gold Nanoparticles Could Help Dye Sensitized Solar Cells

Ovidiu Sandru — Thu, 06 May 2010 19:39:54 +0000

Gold nanoparticles could be used to make better Graetzel solar cells, among others, as a Queensland University of Technology scientist claims to have discovered.

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Purple Bacteria Natural Self-Arrangement Process Can Make Solar Cells Become More Efficient

Ovidiu Sandru — Wed, 05 May 2010 19:42:28 +0000

The purple bacteria are very flexible when it comes to the intensity of light, arranging themselves in different patterns. "Our study develops a mathematical model to describe the designs it adopts and why, which could help direct design of future photoelectric devices," says Johnson, who collaborated on his study with colleagues from the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia.

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Efficient Concentrated Solar Cell Technology Given $129 Million Credit for Development

Ovidiu Sandru — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 19:29:44 +0000

Amonix, a CA-based startup company, is developing ultra-efficient solar cells based on concentrated photovoltaic technology, combining cheap yet powerful lenses, a Sun-tracking system and efficient silicon solar cells, but in smaller quantities than if spread on a panel without lenses.

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Efficiency Record for Silicon Ink Solar Cells Broken by Innovalight

Ovidiu Sandru — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 12:32:19 +0000

Innovalight has a proprietary platform, named Cougar, which can adapt existing solar cell manufacturing processes that companies now own, to their cheaper silicon ink solar cells production line. There is only one step that needs to be added to current manufacturing lines, with -they say- huge profits.

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Plasmonic Thin Film Solar Cells Producing 30% More Electricity Than Non-Treated Ones

Ovidiu Sandru — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 13:12:38 +0000

Kylie Catchpole (image), from the Australian National University in Canberra, working to make thin film solar cells more efficient, discovered that nanoparticles of silver deposited on the surface of a thin-film solar cell would not reflect the incident light back, but instead it would deflect the photons so they bounce back and forth withing the cell, allowing longer wavelengths to be absorbed.

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Graphene Flakes With Attached Brushes Improving Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Ovidiu Sandru — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 14:38:09 +0000

Until now, graphene could have theoretically been incorporated into the dye used to make the Graetzel cell to improve its efficiency, but what stopped the scientists to do that was that it always clumped together, forming graphite, which is of no use for a solar cell.

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Wake Forest's Plastic Fiber Solar Cells Doubling Energy Output of Flat Ones

Ovidiu Sandru — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 01:41:52 +0000

Solar cells get efficient as time goes, but there are methods to improve the performance of current ones, made with older technologies. Wake Forest Center for Nanotechnology has just received a patent for a new solar cell technology that can double the energy production of current silicon flat cells at highly reduced costs.

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Chemically-Etched Black Silicon Proves Efficient Solar Cells Can Be Cheaper

Ovidiu Sandru — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 13:28:40 +0000

While SiOnyx, a MA-based startup, uses lasers to create black silicon and improve the efficiency and price of solar cells, researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) discovered a simple chemical treatment that could replace the otherwise expensive antireflective solar cell coatings currently used in the industry.

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New Quaternary Semiconductor Alloy Could Gear Up Development of Solar Cells

Ovidiu Sandru — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:00:48 +0000

Cun-Zeng Ning and Alian Pan, from Arizona State University, have discovered and fabricated the first quaternary semiconductor nanowire materials, by alloying two binary semiconductors (ZnS + CdSe) - Zinc Sulfide and Cadmium Selenide, and obtained ZnCdSSe.

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Solarmer's Organic Solar Cells Getting Real Hopes to Enter Mainstream Market

Ovidiu Sandru — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 15:14:39 +0000

A CA-based company, Solarmer Energy, is now collaborating with professor Luping Yu, from the University of Chicago, to build the best cheapest flexible polymer solar cell ever, one that will be able to reach 10 percent efficiency.

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Sixtron's Antireflective Coatings Solve Safety and Efficiency Issues in Solar Cell Technology

Ovidiu Sandru — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:50:37 +0000

Up to now, the most used antireflective coating method has been the vapor deposition of a silicon nitride film by using a highly-flamable silane gas, which can ignite when exposed to air. Transporting, storing, ventilating silane gas and other safety-keeping operation make the process very expensive.

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Amazing Experiment Creates 3D Self-Folding Solar Cell Around Water Droplet

Ovidiu Sandru — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:23:45 +0000

University of Illinois researchers discovered a method to manufacture three-dimensional, single-crystalline silicon solar cells from thin films. They used photolithography and a process driven by capillary interaction that made the micron-thick film to bend around itself.

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Tiny Dead Marine Cells Helping Us Create Better Solar Cells

Ovidiu Sandru — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 19:21:01 +0000

Using microscopic creatures as our friends is not a new idea, not it has been used recently. Nowadays, pushed by our green energy needs, we have to find solutions by using and probably killing some of our little friends to make us energy. This phrase sounded like the madhouse, now let's get to the real subject.

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Surface Plasmons Increase PV Efficiency to 30%

Ovidiu Sandru — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 13:07:35 +0000

Solar-powered electricity generation is heading towards better days, due to nanotechnology research. Dutch scientists Kylie Catchpole and Albert Polman from the FOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics in Netherlands, showed that by using nano-sized metal particles in solar cells can render their overall efficiency up to 30%.

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New Electron Cooling Discovery to Extract More Energy from Solar Cells

Ovidiu Sandru — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:05:40 +0000

Do you know that electrons can be "cooled"? The cooling of an electron, in lay language, is the transitory state in which the electron passes from a high-oscillation state to a low-oscillation, normal state. The high oscillation state is given by an external stimulus, i.e. electric voltage.

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Harvard`s Black Silicon: 100 to 500 Times More Powerful Than Old Solar Cells

Ovidiu Sandru — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 12:26:30 +0000

Kept in secret until yesterday, a newly appeared company, named SiOnyx, unveils an invention of some Harvard researchers, that is going to revolutionize the whole industry. Harvard has been studying their "black silicon" for almost ten years, but nothing has come out of their lab, due to internal policies regarding the output of their discoveries to commercial companies.

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