Jul 25, 2013 |
Inexpensive technology could bring high-end solar to the masses
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(Nanowerk News) Engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, have developed an inexpensive new way to grow thin films of a material prized in the semiconductor and photovoltaic industries, an achievement that could bring high-end solar cells within reach of consumer pocketbooks.
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The work, led by Ali Javey, UC Berkeley associate professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, is described in a paper published in Scientific Reports, Nature’s peer-reviewed open access journal ("A direct thin-film path towards low-cost large-area III-V photovoltaics").
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“Performance is everything in the solar cell industry, but performance at a reasonable cost is key,” said Javey, who is also a faculty scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “The techniques we are reporting here should be a game-changer for III-V solar cells, as well as for LEDs.”
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Top of the line photovoltaics are made from a class of material known as III-V (pronounced “three-five”) compounds, known for their superior efficiency at converting light into power. However, the complex manufacturing requirements for III-V materials make them up to 10 times more expensive than silicon, limiting their use to military applications and NASA satellites, the researchers said.
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The UC Berkeley researchers demonstrated that indium phosphide, a III-V compound, could be grown on thin sheets of metal foil in a process that is faster and cheaper than traditional methods, yet still comparable in opto-electronic characteristics.
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