Sentences with phrase «solar cells into»

An international team, led by Berkeley Lab scientists, has demonstrated a breakthrough in the design and function of nanoparticles that could make solar panels more efficient by converting light usually missed by solar cells into usable energy.

Machines do the majority of work: cutting semiconducting materials, such as crystalline silicon, into wafers, turning them into solar cells, and assembling the solar cells into solar panels.

Scientists are reporting a breakthrough in which they have integrated solar cells into a graphene - based electronic skin, raising the possibility of prosthetic limbs that are both sensitive to touch and entirely self - powered.

Audi has announced that it has teamed up with Alta Devices, a subsidiary of the Chinese solar - cell specialist, Hanergy, to integrate thin - film solar cells into panoramic glass roofs.

His team is now reporting a breakthrough in which it has integrated solar cells into a graphene - based electronic skin, raising the possibility of prosthetic limbs that are both sensitive to touch and entirely self - powered.

According to Colsmann, another field of application is the integration of solar cells into buildings: Since the glass facades of high - rise buildings must often be shaded, it is an obvious option to use organic solar modules for transforming the absorbed light into electric power.

What could go wrong when you put the power of the Internet and solar cells into the hands of children in the developing world?

This roll - to - roll coating method makes incorporating solar cells into existing manufacturing processes much simpler.

Not exact matches

This type of solar cell is lightweight and affordable, but requires very careful processing so the materials used mix and crystallize properly into thin films.

The goal was to build what are known as high - efficiency solar panels that feature premium cells that can convert sunlight into energy at a materially higher percentage and at a cost on par with what SolarCity had been paying to Chinese manufacturers for more standard - efficiency solar panels.

The partnership will see Tesla Motors integrate the solar cells and modules that Panasonic will begin manufacturing at the Buffalo facility next year into a solar energy system that will work with its energy storage products, the Powerwall and Powerpack.

A typical solar cell has a silicon semiconductor that absorbs sunlight directly and converts it into electrical energy.

For example, current silicon - based solar cells convert realistically only about 25 percent of sunlight into electricity, so efficiency is an issue, says Calley Eads, a fifth - year doctoral student in the UA's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry who studies some of the properties of these new materials.

When combined with other polymers, the structures could also convert light into electricity and serve as the basis for a novel type of solar cell.

SOLAR cells built into clothing sound like a great way to charge gadgets while on the move, but for the idea to work the cells will have to be both flexible and cheap.

SOLAR cells have an unfortunate habit of reflecting back much of the light that hits them, rather than converting it into electricity.

Because the metal coatings absorb a lot of light, reflecting only a narrow set of wavelengths, Capasso suggests that they could also be incorporated into optoelectronic devices like photodetectors and solar cells.

North Carolina - based Semprius is making ultra-efficient solar cells as thin as a pencil tip and flexible enough to roll into a tube or print on plastic or cloth.

This makes possible the conversion of solar energy into chemical energy that is stored as hydrogen gas formed inside the BPEC cell.

Alternatively, adding a catalyst turns them into carbon nanotubes, which have been used in everything from solar cells to biosensors.

This research provides a new insight into the movement of electrons that could potentially change the way solar cells and semiconductor devices are built.

With the metal - insulator - semiconductor solar cell directly connected to the water - splitting oxidized cobalt catalyst, water was efficiently split into oxygen with exposure to sunlight.

Some solar cells convert sunlight into electricity more efficiently when loud music is played to them — as long as it is pop rather than classical.

Most commercial solar cells use inorganic semiconductors to convert sunlight into a steady stream of electrons that can serve as a power source.

The coating, applied with a technique that could be incorporated into manufacturing, opens a new path for developing low - cost, high - efficiency solar cells with abundant, renewable and environmentally friendly materials.

Badding's solar cell functions just like a common, rigid kind, but with a fiber - optic housing that enables it to bend into a loop.

A team of researchers led by the University of California San Diego has for the first time observed nanoscale changes deep inside hybrid perovskite crystals that could offer new insights into developing low - cost, high - efficiency solar cells.

Despite all the metals and raw materials that go into making solar cells and wind turbines, these sources of low - carbon renewable electrify will have a low climate and environmental impact through 2050

With this technique, the Empa team has again been able to significantly increase the energy conversion efficiency from sunlight into electricity using CIGS thin film solar cells on flexible plastic foils — to a new record level of 20.4 %, representing a marked improvement over the previous record of 18.7 % established by the same team in May 2011.

The smart window controls the transmission of visible light and infrared heat into the building, while the new type of solar cell uses near - UV light to power the system.

Alternatively, for a sensor or solar cell, some fraction of light will never make it to the detector to be collected and turned into an electrical signal.

Helping this potential future along, chemist John Badding and his colleagues at Pennsylvania State University recently embedded solar cells within flexible wires that can be woven into fabric.

New types of solar cells and flexible transistors are also in the works, as well as pressure and temperature sensors that could be built into electronic skin for robotic or bionic applications.

Solyndra is now churning out copper - indium - gallium - selenide (CIGS) thin - film solar cells, wrapped into a cylindrical shape and encased in glass.

Now, the team led by Empa researcher Ayodhya N. Tiwari has made a major leap forward: the researchers are presenting a new manufacturing technique for CIGS solar cells, in which tiny quantities of sodium and potassium are incorporated into the CIGS layer.

By engineering nano - size branches and trunks into plastic solar cells, researchers have improved their ability to harvest the energy in sunlight

Fuel Cells Electricity from any source, such as solar, wind and even coal, can be used to break up water molecules into their hydrogen and oxygen components in a device called an electrolyzer.

All through a sunny day, through the diing evening hours, photovoltaic cells on the roof of an energy - efficient house with supplementary solar power convert the energy of sunlight into electricity.

«We have discovered that by inserting a very thin film of gallium arsenide into the connecting junction of stacked cells we can virtually eliminate voltage loss without blocking any of the solar energy,» says Dr. Salah Bedair, a professor of electrical engineering at NC State and senior author of a paper describing the work.

Stacked cells are currently the most efficient cells on the market, converting up to 45 percent of the solar energy they absorb into electricity.

The seemingly too small rubidium cation was successfully integrated into perovskite solar cells.

While some of today's solar cells use a blend of cadmium and tellurium to convert light into electricity, adding the optimum amount of selenium in the right places could help increase efficiency from the current mark of about 22 percent to levels approaching the theoretical limit of 30 - 33 percent.

«We have shown that the amount of selenium incorporated into the cadmium - tellurium controls whether the small crystals inside the solar cell form as crystal structure A or crystal structure B,» Poplawsky said.

He has not yet incorporated the material into a working solar cell, but his initial experimental results look promising.

Fox aims to turn these diamond films into a new kind of solar cell, one that generates electricity by absorbing heat rather than visible - light wavelengths.

«We are envisioning solar cell layers on glass facades, which let part of the light into the building while at the same time creating electricity,» says Thomas Mueller.

«It's conceivable that one day we might see them included in paint or in solar cells incorporated into windows.

The efficiency of solar cells depends on trapping and absorbing light and can be increased by using a back reflector: a mirror behind the solar cell material that reflects light that was not absorbed and leads it back into the solar cell.

«Ideally, in a solar cell we would want light coming in to turn into several electrons,» said Max Grossnickle, also a graduate student in Gabor's lab and the research paper's co-first author.

Ultimately, though, concentrated solar power plants must compete on price with photovoltaic power plants that convert sunlight directly into electricity, using solar cells.