Plastic Solar Cells Get a Nanoboost

Nov 25 - InTech

SOLAR POWER, LIKE FUEL CELLS, has a strong future, but the problem is how to make it more cost-effective. Over the past ten years, scientists tried to substitute polymers for the expensive- but effective-crystalline materials such as silicon, a traditional solar cell material. These attempts produced solar cells with poor efficiencies at converting light into electricity.

Now, an improved polymer solar cell using nanomatcrial additives is on the drawing board, said Ryne Raffaelle, Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) professor of physics and microsystems engineering and director of NanoPower Research Laboratories. Raffaelle and his team will use a thin polymer film that can roll out in sheets. The film will contain nanoscale pieces of semiconductor material and single-walled carbon nanotubes to maximize energy conversion.

This will enable researchers to cut up or even bend huge sheets of thin film, Raffaelle said. In contrast, crystalline silicon, which researchers have to grow, is expensive and easily cracked due to its crystalline nature.

"Nanotechnology, and more specifically nanomaterials, may provide breakthroughs in the way we convert and use readily available energy sources," Raffaelle said.

In a move to help propel the technology, scientists at RIT's NanoPower Research Laboratories got a three-year $250,000 funding boost from BP Solar to support their nanotechnology research. BP Solar, a manufacturer of solar-electric products, contracted with NanoPower Research Laboratories to develop plastic solar cells using nanomaterials.

RIT established the NanoPower Research Laboratories in 2001 as a series of four laboratories specializing in power devices and nanomaterials.

Copyright Instrument Society of America Nov 2004