New Mostly Plastic Super Efficient Solar Cells

[jadaro2600]

There's also the patent issue.

[onthecuttingedge2005]

I have been preaching light trapping for solar tech for 20 years, finally I can say as a technologist, I told you so.

it is where it is going. they learned how to trap light as I predicted but the first step is to increase efficiency of light trapping by slowing down light first! in side a solar cell.

slow the photons then trap them, this will increase efficiencies very close to 100% conversion rate. solar technology will be unbeatable conventionally as a power source once these two principles are mastered.

no moving parts!

this tech will lead to technologies that slow down, trap and store light without loss, why? because the light is moving so slow that it doesn't interfere with matter for a very long time, loss in signal is almost null so long as the light is slowed to an infinitesimal crawl.

I know how those exotic 'powered' space craft work and this is where I am driving it. nothing can beat photon storage systems that are 100% efficient.

if done correctly, I could store all the light of the Universe and more inside a thimble sized storage container, that is a lot of power folks!

there is nothing better than being able to control light 100%, just ask your gods! they will tell you although I'll keep this scientific for general purposes.

Jerry

[Mark69]

Can you not store light using fiber optics?  Though I wouldn't call it "storing", just keep the light continuing in a loop inside the fiber optics.  Have these vertical silicon solar panels inside the fiber optic lines and the light just keeps passing through, over and over.

[lumen]

Great link, solar panels are the best form of free energy at the moment, I wonder how many years it will take before we can buy these ones off the shelf.
Thanks for posting
cat

@PC

My guess is it will take about 60 to 80 years to get to market. Mainly because they first need to sell all the panels they make to power companies, so they can sell you the power! The power companies will simply just buy up all they can manufacture using the money you already give them for power.
You know how it works.

[jadaro2600]

Honestly, having only one or two 'holes' per atom is kind-of sad, it seems that solid state photovoltaics is a hindrance, so long as solar cells are reacting to their 10% energy efficiency, then the materials science is locked in ...even at 100% efficient, the cells wouldn't produce the energy density of oils...

On top of that, shorting  100% efficient solar cell would be catastrophic to the integrity of the cell itself.

I think some other option may be in order, perhaps a gaseous type cell...  who know what type of gasses though.

The idea would be to have it react out, then when darkened, revert to it's original chemistry ...more limitations though, I'm sure.