Scalable silicon-based optical fibre has solar-cell capabilities

The research is claimed to facilitate the possibility of weaving together solar-cell silicon wires to create flexible, curved or twisted solar fabrics.

The findings by an international team of chemists, physicists, and engineers, led by John Badding, a professor of chemistry at Penn State University, will be published by the journal Advanced Materials.

The team’s new findings are said to build on earlier work addressing the challenge of merging optical fibres with electronic chips — silicon-based integrated circuits that serve as the building blocks for most semiconductor electronic devices such as solar cells, computers, and mobile phones.

Rather than merge a flat chip with a round optical fibre, the team found a way to build a new kind of optical fibre with its own integrated electronic component, thereby bypassing the need to integrate fibre optics with chips.

According to a statement, the team did this by using high-pressure chemistry techniques to deposit semiconducting materials directly, layer by layer, into tiny holes in optical fibres.