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

Earth is bad for the environment

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Not quite there yet

[Retric]

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.

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.