High-efficiency solar cells
Using arrays of long, thin silicon wires embedded in a polymer substrate, a team of scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has created a new type of flexible solar cell that efficiently converts photons into electrons.
‘These solar cells have, for the first time, surpassed the conventional light-trapping limit for absorbing materials,’ said Harry Atwater, Howard Hughes professor of applied physics and materials science at Caltech.
The light-trapping limit of a material refers to how much sunlight it is able to absorb.
The silicon-wire arrays absorb up to 96 per cent of incident sunlight at a single wavelength and 85 per cent of total collectible sunlight.
The silicon-wire arrays are able to convert between 90 and 100 per cent of the photons they absorb into electrons.
The key to the success of the solar cells is their silicon wires, each of which, said Atwater, are independent highly efficient and high-quality solar cells.
When brought together in an array, however, they’re even more effective, because they interact to increase the cell’s ability to absorb light.
Light comes into each wire and a portion is absorbed and another portion scatters.
The collective scattering interactions between the wires make the array very absorbing.
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