Self-assembling Solar-harvesting films

New Research promises cheaper ultra-light thin film solar panels and the basis of a low-cost tool for 3D printing of these thin film circuits.

"Scientists from Imperial College London, working at the Institut Laue-Langevin, have presented a new way of positioning nanoparticles in plastics, with important applications in the production of coatings and photovoltaic material that harvest energy from the sun. The study, presented in Advanced Materials (cover article), used neutrons to understand the role that light – even ambient light – plays in the stabilisation of these notoriously unstable thin films. As a proof of concept the team have shown how the combination of heat and low intensity visible and UV light could in future be used as a precise, low-cost tool for 3D printing of self-assembling, thin-film circuits on these films."

Read more at: Phys.Org

96% Solar Efficiency

A new anti-reflective coating developed by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute could help to overcome two major hurdles blocking the progress and wider use of solar power. The nanoengineered coating boosts the amount of sunlight captured by solar panels and allows those panels to absorb the entire spectrum of sunlight from any angle, regardless of the sun's position in the sky.
An untreated silicon solar cell only absorbs 67.4 percent of sunlight shone upon it — meaning that nearly one-third of that sunlight is reflected away and thus unharvestable.
After a silicon surface was treated with Lin's new nanoengineered reflective coating, however, the material absorbed 96.21 percent of sunlight shone upon it — meaning that only 3.79 percent of the sunlight was reflected and unharvested. This huge gain in absorption was consistent across the entire spectrum of sunlight, from UV to visible light and infrared, and moves solar power a significant step forward toward economic viability.

Source: PhysOrg

Solar Energy Harvesting with Nanowires

Imagine a world where sunlight can be captured to produce electricity anywhere, on any surface. The makers of thin-film flexible solar cells imagine that world too. But a big problem has been the amount of silicon needed to harvest a little sunshine.

Now, researchers [led by Harry A. Atwater] at Caltech say they’ve designed a device that gets comparable solar absorption while using just one percent of the silicon per unit area that current solar cells need. The work was published in the journal Nature Materials.

The research team tried silicon wire arrays instead of traditional silicon panels. These wires have been shown to do a good job converting sunlight to usable energy on the nanoscale. But the scientists had to create wires a thousand times longer.

Light bounces around within the wires and is eventually absorbed when it hits at the correct angle. But there was a problem: too much light was leaking out. Adding nanoparticles of alumina kept much more of the light scattering until it got absorbed. The result is a system that virtually matches silicon wafer light absorption and may be more efficient at converting light to electricity, while using a tiny fraction of the material.—Cynthia Graber

Source (PodCast)

Nanotechnology to make inexpensive solar cells more efficient

For nanotech to meet the need for cheap solar cells to produce electricity, it would be very useful to increase the absorption of light by inexpensive thin-film cells, which use a layer of polycrystalline silicon only 1-2 micrometers thick instead of the more expensive 200-300 micrometer-thick crystalline silicon wafers used for conventional solar cells. An open-access review article describes how a layer of nanoparticles of different sizes, compositions, and shapes enhances the efficiency of thin-film solar cells.

Full article here.

PowerShares Lux Nanotech (ETF)

So here is the monthly update on PowerShares Lux Nanotech ETF(AMEX:PXN):


The performance isn't very bright, and while the stock market indexes didn't react very well to the Fed's decision, most of the few nanotechnology stocks aren't really performing that good either.

On the opposite direction, the solar industry seems to be doing just fine, beating all the other sectors and even the hot china funds. Some solar stocks have gone more than 50% just in the last month!

While I've talked about the future potential of solar technology applied with nanotechnology, the solarstocks performance seems to be happening today, contrary to the nanotech sector.

There are many interesting articles and analysis out there regarding solar energy, and I suggest you head over to SolarTechnologyStocks blog, being one of the few only dedicated to this area.

http://solarstocks.blogspot.com/

More updates as soon as new stuff comes out regarding nanotechnology and the markets.