Solar Cells Crystallized Out of Molten Silicon

Hot Toddy sends in a link to a story up on Digital World Tokyo about a more efficient process for manufacturing solar cells. It involves dropping molten silicon from a height of 14 m; surface tension causes tiny spheres 1 mm in diameter to form; the silicon crystallizes in the 1.5 seconds of free-fall. The spheres can be mounted on surfaces of any shape. They capture light from many directions, increasing their solar efficiency. Kyosemi is the company behind the Sphelar technology. Some of the pages on this site date to 2003 and the status of most listed Sphelar products is either "under development" or "engineering sample is available."

Comments

Never mind the panels

[upside]

Did you see the USB humping dogs? Those really blew me away.

AGW

[pipingguy]

This is all bullshit, we should be spending trillions on trying to modify the planet's behaviour instead. Now mod me down, thanks.