Efficient and Flexible solar cells from Nanopillars
From Nanopillars!
Nano what?
Nanopillars… these are an optically active arrangement of semiconductors designed in arrays of nanoscale pillars from low-cost and flexible material, each a single crystal with dimensions measured in billionths of a meter.
Tell me about solar cells too…
A solar cell’s basic job is to convert light energy into charge-carrying electrons and ‘holes’ (the absence of an electron), which flow to electrodes to produce a current.
Why bother?
To take advantage of abundant solar energy in nature we need to be able to mass-produce efficient solar cells…Unlike a typical two-dimensional solar cell, a nanopillar array offers much more surface for collecting light. Therefore a nanopillar arrangement is,
- More sensitive to light
- Has a greatly enhanced ability to separate electrons from holes
- And is a more efficient collector of these charge carriers
An image of the flexible solar cell made from nanopillars. (Credit: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
Who is involved?
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley.
Please contact us if the credits are inaccurate or need to be changed.
