Solar Power Breakthrough Reported at UCLA

The LA Times carries an article today on a new solar film being developed at UCLA: (excerpt)

One of the holy grails of solar cell technology may have been found, with researchers at UCLA announcing they have created a new organic polymer that produces electricity, is nearly transparent and is more durable and malleable than silicon. The applications are mind-boggling. Windows that produce electricity. Buildings wrapped in transparent solar cells. Laptops and phones – or even cars or planes – whose outer coverings act as chargers. It might even be sprayed on as a liquid. The promise of cheap and easy-to-apply site-generated solar electricity might now be a lot closer to reality. Of course, the idea of solar films and solar plastics is not new. The breakthrough to making a transparent film, however, came with isolating only one band of light in the spectrum.

“[A solar film] harvests light and turns it into electricity. In our case, we harvest only the infrared part,” says Professor Yang Yang at UCLA’s California Nanosystems Institute, who has headed up the research on the new photovoltaic polymer. Absorbing only the infrared light, he explains, means the material doesn’t have to be dark or black or blue, like most silicon photovoltaic panels. It can be clear. “We have developed a material that absorbs infrared and is all transparent to the visible light.”…

11 thoughts on “Solar Power Breakthrough Reported at UCLA

  1. This report about the solar power breakthrough at UCLA will surely serve as an inspiration and an eye-opener to different organisations. Keep your informative posts coming!

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  3. Thank you for sharing this post. I found it very informative and interesting. That is a great break through. Solar power is the wave of the future and the more we progress it, the better. My company has been looking into commercial solar power because we want to save money on our electric bill, while reducing our carbon footprint at the same time!

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