thin film solar cell Archives – The Green Optimistic

Solar Frontier Establishes New Record in Thin Film Efficiency: 19.7%

Benji Jerew — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 06:47:15 +0000

We’ve been covering a lot of advancements in the area of photovoltaic [PV] solar power, from how long solar panels last, decades that is, to breaking the efficiency barrier, which has stood at 18.6% for the last ten years. Some prototype panels have boasted higher efficiency values, up to 44% in the case of a […]

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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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Solar iPad Charger Just as Powerful as the Grid One

Benji Jerew — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 05:18:45 +0000

There is a vast number of iPad covers available, from utilitarian to luxurious. There are also a number of iPad charging covers including solar-powered versions, which eliminate the need to plug in, at least in theory. The problem is that current silicon-based solar cells are heavy, bulky, delicate, and woefully underpowered. Alta Devices, by changing […]

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Wysips's Thin Solar Powered Film Prototype Charges Phone Battery

Ovidiu Sandru — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 19:14:12 +0000

Honestly, the reflection off my phone's screen annoys me, and I think it does the same to anyone. Some French scientists from a company named Wysips have produced a 100-micron thin film that uses the ambient light to charge the phone's battery - in a very cheap manner.

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Konarka's Thin Plastic Organic Solar Cell Breaks New Efficiency Record For Its Class

Ovidiu Sandru — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 09:40:16 +0000

Konarka, one of the early adopters of thin plastic solar cells has recently unveiled news about their latest prototype achieving a light conversion efficiency of 8.3 percent.

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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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New Plastic Sheet From 3M Could Replace Glass in Future Thin Film Solar Cells

Ovidiu Sandru — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 12:57:15 +0000

A new plastic film from 3M could revolutionize the way solar panels are built and seriously affect their cost-effectiveness and market share. The company says it can replace the classic glass and is more protective to solar cells than glass is, making the solar power investment worthwhile.

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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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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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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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IBM's Efficient Thin Film Solar Cell Made of Cheap Materials

Cristi — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:37:54 +0000

They managed to increase the efficiency with almost 40% of their solar cells, from 6,7 percent to 9,6 percent. To reduce even more the costs, these solar cells are build with an inexpensive ink-based process.

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Solexant's Single Layer Thin Film Solar Cell Proves Both Efficient and Cheap

Cristi — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:53:46 +0000

A San Jose, California based company called Solexant has started the development of a thin film solar cell which is cheap and very efficient. Solexant is very confident that their serial production thin film solar cell will have and efficiency increase of 10% compared to silicon based cells.

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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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New MIT Thin Film Solar Cells Brag 50% More Efficiency

Ovidiu Sandru — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 19:35:24 +0000

MIT researchers invented new and improved thin film solar cells that present 50% more efficiency, while being much more cheap than classic solar cells. Their price is due to using less silicon than conventional solar cells.

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