Slashdot Mirror
Research Promises Full-Spectrum Solar Cell
nphillips writes "As is being here reported here, a serendipitous discovery was made that a single system of alloys incorporating indium, gallium, and nitrogen can convert virtually the full spectrum of sunlight -- from the near infrared to the far ultraviolet -- to electrical current. For if solar cells can be made with this alloy, they promise to be rugged, relatively inexpensive -- and the most efficient ever created. Solar cells so efficient and so relatively cheap could revolutionize the use of solar power not just in space but on Earth."
Damn, I came up with this idea when I was 12 years old. There go my retirement plans...
As I understand it, UV light hits the earth at all hours.
Does anyone know how much UV hits the earth during the night? If there's more then a trivial amount of light at night, it means that these new solar panels could potentially generate electricity 24 hours a day.
Even if the nighttime energy generation is 1% of the daytime energy generation, it's still a great improvement over today's solar panels.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
How long until Bush and his oil friends squish this research project? I give 12 months...
I just hope that the European and Japanese groups can take up the slack...
Instead of diving into the Iraqi-war-for-oil scheme, we should spend money researching these new solar technologies...
Question: How do you make President Bush and his "real" constituency soil their adult diapers? Answer: Have them read the article! To the article authors: Hire some body guards! BTW: You have to wonder how much energy (initially) it would require to manufacture, say, a modest 100 kW solar power plant and the amounts of pollution that manufacturing process would produce. I guess, eventually, with enough solar power plants humming away, providing enough energy to manufacture other solar power plants, this question would be academic.
Efficency's not the main reason for the slow uptake of PVs as a viable alternative, it's the capital cost per unit energy generated is the problem.
Currently roof space is cheap, solar cells aren't. The big step is getting $/W down, not the W/m^2 up.
That said, ideally you want low cost _and_ high efficiency.
Heinlein described in one of his short stories how some guy using nano-crystals to create the ultimate "cold light source" and noticing that, like most physical processes, this one is works in reverse as well - he's just invented the "perfect" solar collector! Of course the technical specifics are wrong, he got even them pretty close, and he got the basic idea right...
I also loved how he threw in "small" inventions with thought-out consequences into his stories as background. There's a scene I'll always remember where a young cadet-wannabe facing testing answers his father's call on the cell phone while his friend smirks "I tricked my parents - packed the phone in my bags". I bet this scene is replayed with variants all over the world by now. Pretty good for a story written in the 50s or 60s.
Now, where's my budget rental spaceship he was so derogatory about?
I don't know if that's the same story or not, but I was remembering one where two scientists invent a full-spectrum solar cell, and the only way they can get it into the world without getting themselves murdered first, is to publish the specs openly and then collect royalties.
:)
Heinlein - he da man!
As an aside, a much more feasible way of vastly reducing our dependency on fossil fuels would be to switch everything feasible over to biodiesel. A lot less pollution, too, as well as better fuel efficiency than gasoline engines, plus the engines are simpler and last longer than gasoline engines (no spark system - diesel engines ignite during the compression process - no spark plugs, etc. needed).
Do a Google search for 'biodiesel' and enlighten yourself.
There was article a little while ago about how they had created a new tungston crystal configuration that would adsorb radiation in a certain spectrum and re-emitt at another. In that case they were adsorbing infrared and re-emitting at visible to wildly increase the efficency of incandencent lights, but IIRC the article said that it could be tuned to a wide range of spectra.
What is keeping them from using this to adsorb the visible spectrum and re-emit at an effecient spectrum from converting to electricity ?
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni