Solar Cells Get Boost

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory have tapped the efficiencies of nanotechnology to double solar cells' potential energy production. The key to the method is the use of lead selenium nanocrystals which can produce 2 electrons where 1 was produced before. Other optical applications can also benefit."

Comments

Electrons are not "produced" by solar cells

[I_Love_Pocky!]

Solar cells harness engergy by absorbing photons, which cause electrons in an atom (which are already there) to move to a higher energy state. This technique moves two electrons per photon, rather than one. The point I am making is simply that electrons are being moved, and not created. That would have amazingly different implications, as that would be creating matter from the energy in a single photon, which would only work with very high energy photons.

Storage Storage Storage

[tino_sup]

Renewable energy has made phenomenal leaps, but the storage restriction is the crux. Efficiency is great, and is a move in the right direction. What remanins is the development of efficient and economical storage devices. Imagine your car operating for a week on a one hour solar charge stored in a device the size of 4 D sized batteries.

No it's not.

[Spamalamadingdong]

The real issue with solar energy isn't watts/m^2 of panel, but watts/$. We have more than enough square footage to power our houses and businesses even at current efficiencies, but the capacity is still so expensive that it is very marginal. If Pb/Se nanodots can be made more cheaply than the same wattage of silicon, we'll be ahead; otherwise we won't be.

If we get really lucky, this technology will work well at high light flux and high temperatures (~100 C). This would allow use of concentrating collectors and use of the waste heat for space heat and domestic hot water, multiplying the benefit of the collector and making the whole affair much more economical. Imagine a house that powers its own appliances, stores enough hot water for several days of hot showers and its own heating load, and on sunny days has plenty of juice left over to feed to electric cars. This house would be almost completely independent of fossil fuels and offset fuel use elsewhere, and I'll bet that we could build it now if cost was no object - if we can get 50% or even 40% efficient solar cells at $2/watt working at 100 C, we'll be there.