Solar Research
| 12 July 2012
Materials scientists at Rice University in Houston, Texas (US) have developed a rechargeable lithium-ion battery that can be painted on virtually any surface. The new fabrication technique would open the door to new design and integration possibilities for storage devices. Could Rice’s breakthrough be a leap towards hybrid devices that one day would marry paintable batteries with paintable photovoltaics?
| 03 July 2012
Researchers at the North Carolina State University (NCSU) in Raleigh, North Carolina (US) may have found a way to significantly enhance solar absorption using sandwiched nanostructures. The technique would allow manufacturers to produce much thinner, thus, much cheaper, solar cells in less time while maintaining or even improving conversion efficiency.
| 02 July 2012
A multidisciplinary team of physicists, chemists and mathematicians at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts (US), and a computer scientist at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in Spain has found a new mathematical approach to simulating the electronic behavior of noncrystalline materials that lack an orderly crystal structure, which could expedite the search for better solar cell materials.
| 28 June 2012
The SJ3 solar cell developed by the US Department of Energy's (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) with industrial partner Solar Junction has been named one of 2012’s most significant innovations by R&D Magazine. The cell uses tunable bandgaps, lattice-matched architecture and ultra-concentration tunnel junctions to achieve a world-record conversion efficiency of 43.5% with potential to reach 50%.
| 24 June 2012
Lin X. Chen at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory is taking a fresh approach to improving organic solar cells by investigating the exciton, a “quasi-particle” few other researchers have focused on in the quest to help this promising yet seemingly lab-bound technology break out into the real world.
| 20 June 2012
Earlier this spring, we reported on a breakthrough in building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV): a virtually ‘invisible’ conductive wiring system that transports electricity on glass windows, developed by New Energy Technologies, Inc. at the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Now the partners announced an improvement in its manufacturing technique that should lead to higher speed, lower costs and greater durability for the coatings.
| 18 June 2012
Australian researchers say they have increased the efficiency of third-generation solar cells by at least 25%. The semiconductor in the new dye-sensitised solar cell (DSC) developed at the RMIT University in Melbourne is made from niobia instead of the traditional titania. Niobium pentoxide (Nb2O5) is an inexpensive, chemically stable and environmentally friendly material. Could this metal oxide indeed be the star material solar researchers had been looking for?
| 14 June 2012
Scientists at the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (US), are building a new fundamental understanding of reactions in which a proton and an electron are transferred together (proton-coupled electron transfer — or PCET). Taking a second look at previously undervalued chemical reactions on the surface of metal oxides, such as titanium dioxide and zinc oxide, the researchers have determined these reactions could be key to more efficient solar cells.
More Articles...
- Impurities Affect Efficiency of CIGS Solar Cells
- Leaky Grätzel Cell Problem May be Solved
- Boosting Graphene Solar Cell Efficiency to 8.6%
- Toward Continuous and Portable Solar Fuel
- Structure of PCDTBT Could Be Key to New Generation of Powerful Solar Cells
- Glare-Free, Water-Repellent Glass with Nanoscale Cone Surface
- Chinese, US Researchers Collaborate on Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells with Carbon Nanotube Electrodes
- Simple Thermodynamic Calculations Help Researchers Find Better Solar Cell Materials
- “Blackest Solar Cell” Absorbs 99.7% Sunlight
- Must Max Efficiency Solar Cells Emit Light?
