Tag Archives: solar cell efficiency

Solar Cell Efficiency Rises By 30% Through Singlet Fission

Posted on July 15, 2014 by Ritesh Pothan

Scientists were pretty excited when they discovered you could convert light energy directly into electricity by capturing photons in semiconductors, exciting them into “excitons” (bound electron with negative charge and hole with positive), and capturing the resultant current through electrodes. … Continue reading →

Posted in Cells & Modules, News, Renewables, Solar | Tagged charge, chemistry, Christopher Bardeen, Climate Change, electron, electrons, Energy security, excited state, excitons, inorganic semiconductor, Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, light energy, MIT, molecular alignment, organic photovoltaic cell, photocurrent, photon, photophysics, quantum efficiency, semiconductor, Shockley–Queisser limit, singlet exciton, singlet fission, solar cell efficiency, solar energy conversion, spin property, sub-nanosecond timescale, third generation solar, triplet exciton, University of California Riverside | Leave a comment

NREL verifies First Solar’s 16.1% total area module efficiency record leap

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Ritesh Pothan

Easily surpassing its previous record of 14.4% efficiency, First Solar a pushed the bar to 16.1%. Importantly, the CdTe thin-film leader also set a record for open circuit voltage (VOC), reaching an NREL verified 903.2 millivolts (mV). First Solar … Continue reading →

Posted in Cells & Modules, PV, Solar, Thin Film | Tagged Cadmium Telluride, CdTe, Chief technology officer, First Solar, national renewable energy, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, NREL, Perrysburg Ohio, renewable energy laboratory, solar cell efficiency, United States Department of Energy, VOC | 1 Comment

70% Efficient Solar Cells Possible Using Silicon BC8

Posted on February 5, 2013 by Ritesh Pothan

Researchers at the University of California (UC), Davis state an exotic form of silicon could produce major gains in solar cell efficiency. When a particle of light hits a silicon crystal, it generates a negatively charged electron and a positively … Continue reading →