nanowire solar cell Archives – The Green Optimistic

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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Nano-Antennae Promise 70% Solar Efficiency

Benji Jerew — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 01:09:33 +0000

Modern photovoltaic solar panels are not very efficient converting solar energy into electricity. They need to convert solar energy, which is inherently alternating current [AC], into direct current [DC], which then requires further electronics, an inverter, to convert DC back into AC to connect to the power grid. Seeing as solar panels today have maximum […]

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Dutch Researchers Designing 65% Efficient Nanowire Solar Cells

Ovidiu Sandru — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 14:46:31 +0000

High efficiency solar cells are for the moment only available to space applications, because of their prohibitive costs. The Eindhoven University of Technology from The Netherlands, with a EUR 1.2 million help from the Dutch government wants to develop ultra-efficient solar cells that are also cheap. They envision their cells having a 65% efficiency, something even the satellites would envy.

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CalTech Researchers Creating Near-Perfect Silicon Nanowire Solar Cell

Ovidiu Sandru — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:02:34 +0000

A team of researchers from the California Institute of Technology have invented a new type of solar cell whose active ingredients are nanometer-sized silicon wires. The solar cell they prototyped thus uses only a small fraction of the silicon used to make conventional solar cell, the rest being made of a polymer.

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