New Material Grabs More Solar Energy
Researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of California, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have engineered a single material that contains three bandgaps and is capable of capturing more than 50 percent of the sun's energy.
Source: Space.com
Rush this to production now. We can't afford to wait. -KingFishMost photovoltaic materials absorb a relatively narrow range of light energy. The most efficient silicon solar cells capture only about 25 percent. Multijunction solar cells made from several different materials boost efficiency as high as 36 percent, but are relatively difficult to make and therefore expensive. The new material could lead to relatively inexpensive, highly-efficient solar cells that would be much simpler to make than today's high-end multijunction solar cells. It will take to three years to assess the technical feasibility of the multiband solar cell, according to the researchers.
Source: Space.com
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