We always hear about solar panels to provide energy for houses and plants that sit on top of rooftops and so on. But wouldn’t it be great to have portable solar cells on the back of your cell phone or on any electronic device. These silicon-based solar cells are low-cost and flexible. If they are able to create solar devices for other things then there shouldn’t be a problem.
A professor and student at the University of Chicago have been together studying and developing a new semiconducting material that is called PTB1. This material coverts sunlight into electricity just like solar panels do. They sold their patent rights to Solarmer Energy Inc. The prototype will soon be completed. It will be eight square inches (50 square centimeters) and will have a lifetime of three years. They claim that the device will have the efficiency of eight percent. While everyone else is in the industry is in 5 percent to 6 percent range.
The material is even higher efficiency because they have semiconducting material that works great. The silicon-based solar cells have an active layer of PTB1 is about 100 nanometers in thickness. And the width is about 1,000 atoms. To create a produce a small amount of the PTB1 material, it takes a lot of time and it is a multi-step process.
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