NREL Nano-Technology Solar Cell Achieves 18.2% Efficiency

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.nrel.gov/news/press/2012/2009.html

[font face=Serif]News Release NR-3812

[font size=5]NREL Nano-Technology Solar Cell Achieves 18.2% Efficiency[/font]
[font size=4]Breakthrough should eliminate need for anti-reflection layer, cutting costs[/font]
October 12, 2012
[font size=3]Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have produced solar cells using nanotechnology techniques at an efficiency – 18.2% -- that is competitive. The breakthrough should be a major step toward helping lower the cost of solar energy.

NREL tailored a nanostructured surface while ensuring that the light-generated electricity can still be collected efficiently from the solar cell. The researchers made nano-islands of silver on a silicon wafer and immersed it briefly in liquids to make billions of nano-sized holes in each square-inch of the silicon wafer surface. The holes and silicon walls are smaller than the light wavelengths hitting them, so the light doesn’t recognize any sudden change in density at the surface and, thus, don’t reflect back into the atmosphere as wasted energy. The researchers controlled the nanoshapes and the chemical composition of the surface to reach record solar cell efficiencies for this ‘black silicon’ material.

The paper, “An 18.2%-efficient black-silicon solar cell achieved through control of carrier recombination in nanostructures” by NREL’s Jihun Oh, Hao-Chih Yuan, and Howard Branz, currently appears on Nature Nanotechnology’s website.

Typically, solar cell manufacturers must add an extra anti-reflection layer, or two, to their cells, which boosts costs significantly.

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http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nnano.2012.166.html

[Kennah]

1. We need to increase their budget

President Ford signed into law the bill that led to NREL.

It was originally the Solar Energy Research Institute, but later renamed the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

President Carter increased funding for the agency, then President Reagan gutted it.

President Obama has boosted their annual budget up to $536.5 million for FY2010, and we really need to increase their budget by a factor of ten to $5 billion a year.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/8uryyoq
http://www.nrel.gov/overview/

[FogerRox]

2. SOme background, thanks