Solar Power Electric Cells, Switches and Outlets

New inexpensive way to grow silicon microwires for sensors, batteries and solar cells

Microwires made of silicon -- infinitesimal wires with a thickness comparable to a magnanimous braids — have a encyclopedic stretch of conceivable uses, including the making of solar cells that can obtain much more sunlight for a agreed-upon amount of means than a stuffy solar cell made from a thin wafer of silicon crystal. Now researchers from MIT and Penn Hold have found a way of producing such wires in total in a warmly controlled way that could be scaled up to an industrial-scale manage, potentially chief to functional commercial applications.

Other ways of making such wires are already known, and prototypes of solar cells made from them have been produced by several researchers. But these methods have serious limitations, says Tonio Buonassisi, MIT professor of automatic engineering and a co-prime mover of a publication on the new drudgery that was recently published online in the gazette Lesser , and will shortly occur in the imprint printing. Most be lacking several extraordinarily manufacturing steps, contribute scant check over the exacting sizes and spacing of the wires, and only trade on punctured surfaces. By juxtapose, the new modify is direct yet allows meticulous steer over the wire dimensions and spacing, and could theoretically be done on any humanitarian of curved, 3-D covering....

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What do they expect solar cell efficiency to increase to and what impact would this have on the use of solar?

May 10, 2009 by Clemma | Posted in Green Living

Currently, solar cells are about 30% effective. How can nanotechnology may change this in the future? What do they expect solar cell efficiency to increase to and what impact would this have on the use of solar cells?

There is more than one font of solar technology and it is getting more efficient all the time.