Washington: Nature Communications has published findings which indicate that scientists have developed a new method which could lead to cheap, efficient metal-based solar cells based on research conducted at Rice’s Laboratory for Nanophotonics. The new method involves the use of light-capturing nano materials in future designs.
Bob Zheng, a graduate student and postdoctoral research associate Alejandro Manjavacas discovered that when someone shined light on a metallic nano particle, a subset of electrons in the metal are excited to a much higher energy level. This is in contrast to today’s most efficient photovoltaic cells which use a combination of semiconductors that are made from rare and expensive elements like gallium and indium.
Zheng said that Plasmonic-based photovoltaics had low efficiencies, adding that it has not been entirely clear whether those arose from fundamental physical limitations or from less-than-optimal designs.
