Cheap metal-based Solar Cells more Efficient
With the emerging threat to the non-renewable energy sources, there has been extensive research in the world community on methods to use renewable energy more efficiently.
Similarly, few scientists from the Rice's Laboratory for Nano- photonics described a new method by which solar cells could be manufactured from cheap metal, and also could function more efficiently. They suggested that the solar panel designers could use to incorporate light capturing nano-materials into future designs.
Bob Zheng, a graduate student and Alejandro Manjavacas, Postdoctroral Research Associate created a methodology that solar engineers could use to determine the electricity producing potential for any arrangement of metallic nano-particles.
Most of the photo conducting materials are mad out of rare and expensive elements like gallium and indium. Zheng said that Plasmonic-based photo-voltaic had low efficiencies, adding that it has not been entirely clear whether those arose from fundamental physical limitations or from less-than-optimal designs. He said a recent example of such work comes from a pioneering experiment by another Rice graduate student, Ali Sobhani, where the absorption was concentrated near a metal semiconductor interface.
The scientists have developed a new technique to bolster the field intensity enhancement of photonic structures. The study has also been published in the Nature Communications.
