Designers of solar cells may soon be setting their sights higher, as a discovery by a team of researchers has revealed a class of materials that could be better at converting sunlight into energy than those currently being ...
Optics & Photonics
Aug 8, 2016
1
114
Plastics surround us, whether it's the grocery bags we use at the supermarket or household items such as shampoo and detergent bottles. Plastics don't exist only as large objects, but also as microscopic particles that are ...
Environment
Apr 20, 2022
1
488
(Phys.org)—From petroleum refining to food processing, the vast majority of commercial chemical applications involve catalysts to control the rate of chemical reactions. Anything that can increase the efficiency of catalysts ...
The efficiency of conventional solar cells could be significantly increased, according to new research on the mechanisms of solar energy conversion led by chemist Xiaoyang Zhu at The University of Texas at Austin.
Condensed Matter
Dec 15, 2011
12
0
Recently, a research team at Osaka University has successfully demonstrated the generation of megatesla (MT)-order magnetic fields via three-dimensional particle simulations on laser-matter interaction. The strength of MT ...
Optics & Photonics
Dec 9, 2021
0
4155
Chemists have found a new, more efficient method to perform light-driven reactions, opening up another possible pathway to harness sunlight for energy. The journal Science is publishing the new method, which is based on plasmon ...
Nanophysics
Aug 6, 2015
2
1216
Seeing light emerge from a nanoscale experiment didn't come as a big surprise to Rice University physicists. But it got their attention when that light was 10,000 times brighter than they expected.
Nanomaterials
Jun 29, 2020
0
2782
Conventional solar cell efficiency could be increased from the current limit of 30 percent to more than 60 percent, suggests new research on semiconductor nanocrystals, or quantum dots, led by chemist Xiaoyang Zhu at The ...
Nanomaterials
Jun 17, 2010
4
0
Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have demonstrated a new mechanism for extracting energy from light, a finding that could improve technologies for generating electricity from solar energy and lead to more efficient ...
Nanophysics
Sep 9, 2013
0
0
Semiconductors convert energy from photons (light) into an electron current. However, some photons carry too much energy for the material to absorb. These photons produce "hot electrons," and the excess energy of these electrons ...
General Physics
Nov 15, 2019
0
367
