Re: Professor Devises New Form of Solar Cell

Eeyore wrote:

Pluto wrote:


Chemist Pam Shapiro, her graduate students and her colleagues at the university are
working on creating better materials and combining them in new ways that could more than
double the efficiency of present solar cells. If successful, she said the new technology
could help the U.S. break its oil dependency.


*More* than double ? Some PV panels claim to be 15-16% efficient already and ISTR that
there's a theoretical upper bound of ~ 30% possible.

Graham


He actually may have actually stumbled into a real development.
Sometimes one actintally slips through all the hogwash.

Quantum dots do indeed potentially provide for as much as three times the efficiency because they can knock as many as three times as many electrons loose.
But only at the highest light frequencies. eg UV.

In conventional silicon, any energy above the bandgap is lost as heat.
With Quantum dots, the multiple bandgap energies can be stacked and simultaneously released. Thus smashing through the silicon efficiency limit.

Search under Quantum Dot or CIGS Solar in Google for full details.

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Synergetics 3860 West First Street Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552
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