Skip to main content

Home/ SciByte/ Group items tagged solarcell

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Mars Base

The Solar Cell That Turns 1 Photon into 2 Electrons: Scientific American - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm

scibyte91 solarcell

shared by Mars Base on 19 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • If an incoming photon has too little energy, the cell won’t absorb it
  • Solar cells
  • If a photon has too much, the excess is wasted as heat
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • a silicon solar cell can never generate more than one electron from a single photon
  • severely limit the conversion efficiency of photovoltaic cells, and scientists have spent decades looking for work-arounds
  • the key to greater solar efficiency might be an organic dye called pentacene
  • a photovoltaic cell based on pentacene can generate two electrons from a single photon—more electricity from the same amount of sun.
  • The key is a phenomenon called singlet-exciton fission, in which an arriving photon generates two “excitons” (excited states) that can be made to yield two electrons.
  • Previous researchers had accomplished similar tricks using quantum dots (tiny pieces of matter that behave like atoms) and deep-ultraviolet light
  • Why it works is still not particularly clear, and for now, the pentacene cell works only with an extremely narrow band of visible light
  • it should be possible to create a pentacene coating for silicon solar cells that boosts the total conversion efficiency from today’s 25 percent to a shade over 30 percent—a significant jump
Mars Base

Tube-shaped solar cells could be weaved into clothing - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...3-tube-shaped-solar-cells.html

scibyte36 solarcell

shared by Mars Base on 03 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • semiconducting nanorods grown on the surface of carbon fibers look more like bristles on a tiny hairbrush than a solar cell
  • the flexible tube-shaped cells can capture light from all directions and even have the potential to be weaved into clothing and paper for novel applications
  • current stage of development, researchers are trying to find a simple, low-cost method for fabricating high-quality tube-shaped solar cells.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • recently developed a new method for preparing uniform titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanorods on carbon fibers
  • advantages over the commonly used sol-gel method, which requires high temperatures and can cause cracks in the materials.
  • Fabricating tube-like solar cells is challenging due to the multiple steps involved
  • an ideal solution for preparing TiO2 nanostructures on carbon fibers is to grow them directly on the fiber’s surface
  • results showed that the rectangular bunched nanorod configuration achieved an energy conversion efficiency of 1.28%, compared with 0.76% for the unbunched configuration
  • attribute the difference to the larger surface area of the bunched nanorods, which enables more dye molecules to be adsorbed,
  • large surface area gives the tube-shaped solar cells the ability to capture light from all directions
Mars Base

Germany sets weekend record for solar power - 0 views

phys.org/...rmany-weekend-solar-power.html

scibyte49 solarcell

shared by Mars Base on 30 May 12 - No Cached
  • Solar power plants in Germany have set a new record. “Never before anywhere has a country produced as much photovoltaic electricity,"
  • plants peaked at 22 gigawatts of output for a few hours over the weekend, on Friday and Saturday
  • they yielded almost half the country's energy mid-day electricity needs
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • 22 gigawatts is up from 14 GW a year ago. Also, this 22 gigawatts of output is equal to about 20 nuclear plants.
  • 2012 Environment Ministry report showed that German taxpayers pay an extra four billion euros per year on top of their electricity bills to support solar power
  • The new record-breaking figures from Germany, however, do not quiet some energy experts who stress that without good storage strategies for excess power, such record-breaking numbers are not meaningful. They say the real point is to get consistently large percentages of power from renewable sources.
Mars Base

A Twisting Tale of Space Solar Power - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...ting-tale-of-space-solar-power

scibyte49 solarcell

shared by Mars Base on 30 May 12 - No Cached
  • announced his team’s development of modular devices that could be used to gather solar energy in orbit, working atop an experimental “space web” structure developed by graduate students at the university’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.
  • “By using either microwaves or lasers we would be able to beam the energy back down to earth, directly to specific areas. This would provide a reliable, quality source of energy and would remove the need for storing energy coming from renewable sources on ground as it would provide a constant delivery of solar energy.”
1 - 5 of 5
Showing 20▼ items per page