Nanophotovoltaics

Solar Research and Nanotechnology

Numerous reports highlight the usefulness of nanoscale and nanoscale-enabled science and technology products and processes for various aspects of solar energy science and technology advances.

Nanotech 2008, an event with over 30 technical and business symposia, offered a good deal of research on solar energy and photovoltaics. The usefulness of nanoscale sciences and technologies applies to all approaches of generating solar energy, such as concentrating PV systems, flexible thin-film photovoltaic (PV) cells, organic printed solar cells, polymer solar cells, plastic solar panels, ink-based solar technologies, spray applications of solar power, and dye-sensitized solar cells.

Research on Nanoscience and Solar Power

Ted Sargent, a Canadian nanotechnology researcher, has been awarded a $10 million grant from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia, to further develop nanotechnology that uses the infrared rays of the sun to provide power for virtually everything currently powered by electricity. The University of Copenhagen's Niels Bohr Institute is doing research on “nanoflakes” that could convert up to 30 percent of solar energy into electricity—doubling current solar efficiency—at no increase in cost. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Chesonis Family Foundation launched a “solar revolution,” with the ultimate goal of making solar energy America's primary carbon-free fuel. Physicist Bram Hoex and colleagues at Eindhoven University of Technology, together with the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany, use ultra-thin layers (approximately 30 nm) of aluminum oxide in their solar cell approach. Rensselaer physics professor Shawn-Yu Lin and his group developed nanoengineered antireflective coating that increased the absorption of sunlight to 96 percent.

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE have achieved a record efficiency of 41.1 percent for the conversion of sunlight into electricity in concentrating PV systems. The Swinburne University of Technology, Australia, and Suntech Power Holdings Company, a photovoltaic (PV) module manufacturer, announced that they will be collaborating to develop nanoplasmonic solar cells that are twice as efficient and half as expensive as those currently available. Swansea University is leading a research project together with Imperial College, London, and Bangor and Bath University's PV Accelerator Laboratory in Shotton is working to develop a method of applying solar paint to steel. Corus Group is the steel manufacturer underwriting this project.

...