Affordable solar power gets closer and closer. Researchers at Ohio State University have developed a hybrid material which overcomes two obstacles that solar energy researchers have been trying to solve. A material which absorbs all wavelengths of energy in sunlight, i.e. the entire rainbow of colors, and which increased the effeciency of electricity production by producing electrons in two different states.
The Ohio State team was assisted by researchers at Taiwan University to develop and synthesize the new material. A story on the new development by Science Daily has more.
This new material is the first that can absorb all the energy contained in visible light at once.
The material generates electricity just like other solar cell materials do: light energizes the atoms of the material, and some of the electrons in those atoms are knocked loose.
Ideally, the electrons flow out of the device as electrical current, but this is where most solar cells run into trouble. The electrons only stay loose for a tiny fraction of a second before they sink back into the atoms from which they came. The electrons must be captured during the short time they are free, and this task, called charge separation, is difficult.
In the new hybrid material, electrons remain free much longer than ever before.
While this new technology is still years from commercial application and development, I find that innovations like this strengthen the likelihood of solar generated electricity reaching parity in price with other forms of electricity generation in just a few more years.
No comments:
Post a Comment