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Microscopic Rake Doubles Efficiency of Low-cost Solar Cells
https://www6.slac.stanford.edu/news/2015-08-12-microscopic-rake-doubles-efficiency-low-cost-solar-cells.aspx[font face=Serif][font size=5]Microscopic Rake Doubles Efficiency of Low-cost Solar Cells[/font]
August 12, 2015
[font size=3]Researchers from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have developed a manufacturing technique that could double the electricity output of inexpensive solar cells by using a microscopic rake when applying light-harvesting polymers.
When commercialized, this advance could help make polymer solar cells an economically attractive alternative to those made with much more expensive silicon-crystal wafers.
In experiments, solar cells made with the tiny rake double the efficiency of cells made without it and are 18 percent better than cells made using a microscopic straightedge blade.
…
In the current work, as the polymers are painted onto a conducting surface, they are forced through a slightly angled rake containing several rows of stiff microscopic pillars. The rake is scraped along the surface at the relatively slow speed of 25-100 micrometers per second, which translates to 3.5-14.2 inches per hour. The large polymer molecules untangle and mix with each other as they bounce off and flow past the pillars, ultimately drying into tiny nanometer-sized crystals of uniform size with enhanced electrical properties.
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August 12, 2015
A scanning electron microscope image shows the rigid pillar-like bristles of the FLUENCE rake, which is used to apply light-harvesting polymers to a solar cell. The distance between the pillars is 1 micrometer, about one-hundredth the diameter of a human hair. (Z. Bao et al, Nature Communications)
[font size=3]Researchers from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have developed a manufacturing technique that could double the electricity output of inexpensive solar cells by using a microscopic rake when applying light-harvesting polymers.
When commercialized, this advance could help make polymer solar cells an economically attractive alternative to those made with much more expensive silicon-crystal wafers.
In experiments, solar cells made with the tiny rake double the efficiency of cells made without it and are 18 percent better than cells made using a microscopic straightedge blade.
…
In the current work, as the polymers are painted onto a conducting surface, they are forced through a slightly angled rake containing several rows of stiff microscopic pillars. The rake is scraped along the surface at the relatively slow speed of 25-100 micrometers per second, which translates to 3.5-14.2 inches per hour. The large polymer molecules untangle and mix with each other as they bounce off and flow past the pillars, ultimately drying into tiny nanometer-sized crystals of uniform size with enhanced electrical properties.
…[/font][/font]