This site may earn chapter commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

solar

Traditional solar cells harvest only a narrow sliver of the electromagnetic energy pouring downwardly onto Earth, and that's ane of the reasons it'south been so challenging to get solar efficiency across 20-thirty percent. A team of researchers from George Washington University has devised a new layered solar panel that can absorb lite from a wider range of the spectrum, pushing the efficiency as high equally a stunning 44.five percent. This could be ane of the most efficient solar cell in the world, if all goes as planned.

These panels won't look like the standard photovoltaics you run across on roofs or in open solar farms. They are based on concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) panels, which uses a lens or reflector to focus sunlight on a smaller surface area. CPV tin can make solar power generation more efficient and cheaper since the panels don't have to exist as big. The current tape for solar efficiency is 46 per centum, which made use of a CPV panel design. In the instance of the new study, the team is targeting a panel that's less than one millimeter foursquare.

What really makes this new design potentially revolutionary is the style cells are stacked on top of each other. Each layer is used to absorb a specific wavelength of light, allowing others to laissez passer through to be collected farther downwardly. Most of the solar energy falling on Globe has wavelengths of wavelengths of 250nm to 2500nm. Specifically, this layered cell is much better at collecting those longer wavelengths of light into the infrared. Those have less energy than shorter wavelengths, but there's a lot of it. The current record-holder pattern maxes out at 1750nm, and then the George Washington University team has room to grow.

Electromagnetic-spectrum

There are two dissimilar materials used in the construction of the cells to achieve this. The upper layers are equanimous of conventional photovoltaic substrates, which are adept at capturing shorter wavelengths of lite. Below that, the team used an advanced GaSb-based material in the cells that can absorb energy from longer wavelengths. Additionally, the stacking process uses what'south known equally transfer press, which allows the layers to exist easily lined upward and assembled for maximum functioning.

New solar panel technology is notoriously difficult to implement in existent life. The primary drawback right now is the very high cost of this stacked solar cell. Information technology's not constructive from a toll standpoint, but the cost of materials and manufacturing will exist reduced in the futurity. The 44.5 percentage efficiency rating may exist additional with additional refinements likewise.

At present read: How do solar cells work?