Sunday 15 September 2013

New nanomaterial increases yield of solar cells

phys.org
26 Aug 2013

Researchers from the FOM Foundation, Delft University of Technology, Toyota Motor Europe and the University of California have developed a nanostructure with which they can make solar cells highly efficient. The researchers published their findings on 23 August 2013 in the online edition of Nature Communications.

Smart nanostructures can increase the yield of solar cells. An international team of researchers including physicists from the FOM Foundation, Delft University of Technology and Toyota, have now optimised the nanostructures so that the solar cell provides more electricity and loses less energy in the form of heat.

Solar cells
A conventional solar cell contains a layer of silicon. When sunlight falls on this layer, electrons in the silicon absorb the energy of the light particles (photons). Using this energy the electrons jump across a 'band gap', as a result of which they can freely move and electricity flows.

The yield of a solar cell is optimised if the photon energy is equal to the band gap of silicon. Sunlight, however, contains many photons with energies greater than the band gap. The excess energy is lost as heat, which limits the yield of a conventional solar cell.

Nanospheres
Several years ago the researchers from Delft University of Technology, as well as other physicists, demonstrated that the excess energy could still be put to good use. In small spheres of a semiconducting material the excess energy enables extra electrons to jump across the band gap. These nanospheres, the so-called quantum dots, have a diameter of just one ten thousandth of a human hair.

If a light particle enables an electron in a quantum dot to cross the band gap, the electron moves around in the dot. That ensures that the electron collides with other electrons that subsequently jump across the band gap as well. As a result of this process a single photon can mobilise several electrons thereby multiplying the amount of current produced.

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