Nature & Environment
Tiny Nanowires Revolutionize Future of Solar Energy: Incredible Efficiency Inspired by Trees (Video)
Catherine Griffin
First Posted: Apr 08, 2013 02:51 PM EDT
The future of solar energy may be here--at least in part. Inspired by trees, researchers have created tiny filaments called nanowires that could cause solar panels to be more efficient and use 10,000 times less material. The breakthrough could potentially revolutionize the use of solar panels and create energy at a far lower cost.
Measuring only tens to hundreds of nanometers, the diameter of these wires is up to 1,000 times smaller than a human hair. When equipped with the right electronic properties, though, the tiny filaments become powerful solar cells with the ability to transform sunlight into an electric current. In fact, they can capture up to 12 times more sunlight than the usual flat solar cell.
How do they do it? The wires naturally concentrate the sun's rays into a very small area in the crystal that they possess by up to a factor of 15. The nanowire crystal's diameter is smaller than the wavelength of the light coming from the sun. This causes resonances in the intensity of light in and around nanowires. These resonances can concentrate the sunlight and convert it into energy, essentially giving a higher conversion efficiency of the sun's light.
In addition, the nanowire itself is made out of gallium arsenide, a material which is better at converting light into power than silicon. In theory, an array of nanowires could attain 33 percent efficiency--solar panels are now only 20 percent efficient.
Not only is the nanowire more efficient, though; it's also cheaper. Since the nanowires would be arranged in an array that would use less gallium arsenide--about 10,000 times less--the expense would also be less. In fact, the cost would only be about $10 per square meter rather than the usual $100,000.
It's not only solar panels that would benefit from this innovation, though. These nanowires could also hold enormous potential for the future of quantum computers and other electronic products.
That said, this array is still only theoretical and researchers have yet to build an actual working prototype. The nanowires themselves, though, show great potential. They could potentially be mounted in a variety of panels that could be customized depending on what they were being used for.
The details of these nanowires are published in the journal Nature Phototonics.
Want to learn more about the nanowires? Check out the video below, originally appearing here.
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First Posted: Apr 08, 2013 02:51 PM EDT
The future of solar energy may be here--at least in part. Inspired by trees, researchers have created tiny filaments called nanowires that could cause solar panels to be more efficient and use 10,000 times less material. The breakthrough could potentially revolutionize the use of solar panels and create energy at a far lower cost.
Measuring only tens to hundreds of nanometers, the diameter of these wires is up to 1,000 times smaller than a human hair. When equipped with the right electronic properties, though, the tiny filaments become powerful solar cells with the ability to transform sunlight into an electric current. In fact, they can capture up to 12 times more sunlight than the usual flat solar cell.
How do they do it? The wires naturally concentrate the sun's rays into a very small area in the crystal that they possess by up to a factor of 15. The nanowire crystal's diameter is smaller than the wavelength of the light coming from the sun. This causes resonances in the intensity of light in and around nanowires. These resonances can concentrate the sunlight and convert it into energy, essentially giving a higher conversion efficiency of the sun's light.
In addition, the nanowire itself is made out of gallium arsenide, a material which is better at converting light into power than silicon. In theory, an array of nanowires could attain 33 percent efficiency--solar panels are now only 20 percent efficient.
Not only is the nanowire more efficient, though; it's also cheaper. Since the nanowires would be arranged in an array that would use less gallium arsenide--about 10,000 times less--the expense would also be less. In fact, the cost would only be about $10 per square meter rather than the usual $100,000.
It's not only solar panels that would benefit from this innovation, though. These nanowires could also hold enormous potential for the future of quantum computers and other electronic products.
That said, this array is still only theoretical and researchers have yet to build an actual working prototype. The nanowires themselves, though, show great potential. They could potentially be mounted in a variety of panels that could be customized depending on what they were being used for.
The details of these nanowires are published in the journal Nature Phototonics.
Want to learn more about the nanowires? Check out the video below, originally appearing here.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone