New solar cell could capture more of the sun's energy

The solar cell could increase the maximum efficiency of solar panels by more than 25 per cent, according to the scientists from the university’s physics department.

Solar cells work by absorbing energy from particles of light, known as photons, which then generate electrons to create electricity.

Traditional solar cells are only capable of capturing part of the light from the sun and much of the energy of the absorbed light, particularly from the blue section of the light spectrum, is lost as heat.

This inability to simultaneously extract the full energy from the light spectrum means that traditional solar cells are incapable of converting more than 34 per cent of the available sunlight into electrical power.

Bruno Ehrler, lead author of a paper published on the subject in the journal Nano Letters, said: ‘Our solar cell uses inorganic and organic materials at the same time. In that respect it is a hybrid cell.’

The inorganic part is made from lead sulphide nanoparticles while the organic part is made from pentacene, a semiconducting material.