Slashdot Mirror
Ultra-Thin Solar Cells Can Be Bent Around A Pencil (computerworld.com.au)
angry tapir quotes a report from Computerworld: Scientists in South Korea have developed solar cells thin enough they can be bent around a pencil. The cells could help usher in the use of solar energy in small portable gadgets where space is at a premium. The cells are fabricated onto a flexible substrate that is just a micrometer thick -- one-half to one-quarter the thickness of other "thin" solar cells and hundreds of times thinner than conventional cells. [The team at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea managed to reduce the thickness by directly attaching the cells to the substrate without the use of an adhesive. They were stamped onto the substrate and then cold welded, a process that binds two materials together through pressure, not heat. The scientists tested the cells and discovered they can almost be folded in half -- wrapped around a radius as small as 1.4 millimeters. A paper describing the work was published on Monday in Applied Physics Letters, a journal of the American Institute of Physics.]
. . . like cost and durability ? If they are thin and flexible but degrade or fail easily (or are temperature sensitive, or the substrate breaks down under prolonged UV exposure, for example. . .) then it's only a nifty tech demonstrator.
Likewise, if the cost per watt is an order of magnitude higher than other, less-flexible technologies.
It's a complicated balancing act, and articles like this simply don't give much more information than a press release. Neat Tech ? Sure. Usable Tech ? Insufficient information. . .