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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."
The article seems to imply that the technique would be applicable to existing materials, but also seems to imply that it has only been show to work for lead-selenium nanocrystals. So will the technique of using nanocrystals work with other materials? If not, will incorporating the lead-selenium nanocrystals in a matrix of conventional material, nanocrystal-sized or otherwise, generate two electrons/photon? And finally, does the cost of making the nanocrystals make the whole thing not cost effective, other perhaps in something like spacecraft, where every once saved is of tremendous worth?
If you can't beat them, embrace and extend them.
for every time I heard about cheaper, more efficient solar cell, I could buy a solar powered calculator. Which is just about all I've seen solar power be good for at the consumer level.
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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.
This is it folks, this is what we've been waiting for. As it is, solar panels are a pretty marginal energy source for most applications. We've all seen the specially built vehicles that are basicly a big solar panel on wheels (some of us (like me) have even built one). We've all seen the houses with the roof covered in solar panels and they still have to buy all whacky expensive 12v high efficiency appliances and forget about an electric drier. With solar cells like these, solar power just lept from impractical to practical. Make way for the days of solar powered PDAs and cell phones, cars, houses, buses, airplanes, you name it. This is the breakthrough that will lead the way. Unless it flops, of course.
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www.n1ywb.com
Earth is bad for the environment. It contains lethal amounts of lead, selenium. Dangerous amounts of dihydrogen oxide (which kills many thousands a year) have accumulated on its surface.
I think you're trying to make a funny, but in case you aren't... They are nano crystals. That probably means that while they're made from lead, there still isn't much lead in each cell. Also, solar cells can easily last for 100 years, it's not like they're disposable. Not to mention the fossil fuels they displace.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
It is indeed a shame that more interest in this technology doesn't exist. The lack of responses to this article is pretty disappointing, especially since I would think /.ers would be one of the main supporters. Doubling the output of cells is a definite improvement.
I remember reading somewhere (IIRC one of the Real Goods Source Books) that had the phrase similar to "Solar Panels will never become widely accepted until they are available from your local Home Depot." This definitely rings true. Aside from the solar powered walkway lights (total garbage), they have very little to offer there. Solar Cells need to be cheaper and more powerful if people are going to use them.
It's good to see that progress is being made, though, as this article describes. Perhaps one day it will indeed become practical to use solar panels. Until then, we're stuck with calculators.
From what I can tell there not manufacturing solar cells using "lead selenium nanocrystals" but rather they found a method of detecting "impact ionization" via the delay between the photon impact and electron emissions. They then tested several substances and discovered that lead selenium nanocrystals produced impact ionization on close to 100% of photon impacts.
So if you really want to know what's going on you need to discover how efferent lead selenium solar cell's are and what it takes to mass produce lead selenium nanocrystals in a cheep long lasting solar cell.
So it's a long way from producing 60+% efficient solar cells but it's still cool.
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.
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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.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist