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RESEARCHOctober 6, 2008Process prints flexible silicon solar cellsMake silicon solar cells small enough – some 10 times narrower than the period at the end this sentence -- and you can literally print them onto surfaces, including curved and flexible surfaces.A method for making tiny crystalline silicon solar cells and stamping sets of them onto various surfaces yields flexible, lightweight solar modules. The cells' 6 to 8 percent efficiency is about three times lower than traditional crystalline silicon solar cells and lower than the most efficient flexible solar cells, but about twice as high as flexible plastic solar cells. The modules are semitransparent -- the transparency is determined by the spacing of the cells. The room-temperature stamping technique could lead to inexpensive solar cells, in part by reducing the amount of silicon used in each solar module. Research paper: Ultrathin Silicon Solar Microcells for Semitransparent, Mechanically Flexible and Microconcentrator Module Designs Nature Materials, published online October 5, 2008 Researchers' homepages: John Rogers Research Group Joseph B. Geddes The Nuzzo Research Group Colloidal Assembly Group Placid M. Ferreira Yonggang Huang Rockett Research Group Related stories and briefs: Flexible silicon -- preliminary research Process prints silicon on plastic -- preliminary research Further info: Q&A: UNSW's Martin Green -- a leading silicon solar cell researcher Q&A: University of Delaware's Robert Birkmire -- a leading silicon solar cell researcher Back to ERN October 6/13, 2008 |
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