Charge of the light brigade: How quantum dots may improve solar cells
June 18th, 2010 |
3
Photovoltaic cells remain woefully inefficient at converting sunlight into electricity. Although layered cells composed of various elements can convert more than 40 percent of (lens-concentrated) sunlight into electricity, more simple semiconducting materials such as silicon hover around 20 percent when mass-produced. And, at best, such cells could convert only a third of incoming sunlight due [...]
Keep reading »Sunshine is free, so can photovoltaics be cheap?
March 10th, 2010 |
16
Here’s how to make a solar cell from silicon: take one solid block of doped silicon, saw it into thin wafers, layer said semiconductors beneath a panel of transparent glass, connect them to a metal electrode that can channel away the electrons knocked loose by incoming photons and turn it into a photovoltaic device. That [...]
Keep reading »
See what we're tweeting about
