We’ve raved about solar cells previously: here, and here, the
technology has taken several quantum leaps over the past decade.
Paintable crystalline and printable solar cells seem to be the
way of the future, the fight now is for real solar efficiency.
Solar panels that can be simply printed have inched a step
closer with the development of an energy efficient, organic,
small-molecule solar cell. The solar cell, which was developed
by a team from the University of California, Santa Barbara, has
energy efficiencies of 6.7 per cent, which rivals the best
polymer-based solar cells. Most polymer-based designs have
reached the 6 to 8 range for efficiency. “These results provide
important progress for solution-processed organic photovoltaics
and demonstrate that solar cells fabricated from small donor
molecules can compete with their polymeric counterparts,” the
authors, including Nobel Prize winner Professor Alan Heeger,
wrote in Nature Materials. Read the full article »»»»