Until now, designers of buildings have no choice but to use black or bluish-gray colored solar panels. With the help of thin-film technologies, researchers have now been able to turn solar cells into colorful creations.
Energy & Green Tech
Jul 1, 2013
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(Phys.org) —In an approach that could challenge silicon as the predominant photovoltaic cell material, University of Wisconsin-Madison materials engineers have developed an inexpensive solar cell that exploits carbon nanotubes ...
Nanophysics
Jun 18, 2013
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(Phys.org) —Pixie dust may be the stuff of fanciful fiction, but for scientists at UC Santa Barbara's Department of Materials, a commonly used sugar-based additive has been found to have properties that are near magical. ...
Materials Science
Jun 12, 2013
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(Phys.org) —The potential energy available via solar power might seem limitless on a sunny summer day, but all that energy has to be stored for it to be truly useful. If you see a solar panel on a rooftop, in a large-scale ...
Energy & Green Tech
Jun 7, 2013
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There has been great interest in recent years in using tiny particles called quantum dots to produce low-cost, easily manufactured, stable photovoltaic cells. But, so far, the creation of such cells has been limited by the ...
Nanophysics
May 24, 2013
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(Phys.org) —Most Americans want the U.S. to place more emphasis on developing solar power, recent polls suggest. A major impediment, however, is the cost to manufacture, install and maintain solar panels. Simply put, most ...
Nanomaterials
May 13, 2013
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Researchers have been able to improve the efficiency of solar cells by coating the cell surface with extremely small nanoscale structures. The new technology has been shown to nearly eliminate the reflection losses of solar ...
Energy & Green Tech
Apr 25, 2013
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Mass manufacture of photovoltaic materials is often achieved inexpensively by screen printing organic solar cells onto plastic sheets. The polymer known as poly(ethylene terephthalate), or PET, is a key part of the technology. ...
Polymers
Mar 27, 2013
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Using exotic particles called quantum dots as the basis for a photovoltaic cell is not a new idea, but attempts to make such devices have not yet achieved sufficiently high efficiency in converting sunlight to power. A new ...
Nanophysics
Mar 25, 2013
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Engineers and scientists from the University of Sheffield have pioneered a new technique to analyse PCBM, a material used in polymer photovoltaic cells, obtaining details of the structure of the material which will be vital ...
General Physics
Feb 25, 2013
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