Oct 15 2010
Rutgers University physicists have stumbled upon the new properties possessed by a material which could result in inexpensive and efficient plastic solar cells towards the production of pollution-free electricity.
This discovery has been slated for publication in the journal titled “Nature Materials” and is also posted online, while revealing that the energy-carrying particles that are generated by the packets of light have the capacity to travel in carbon-based organic semiconductors farther by a thousand times, than previously observed by scientists.
The discovery has also boosted the hopes of scientists that the solar cells that are based upon this budding technology might one day be overtaking the silicon solar cells in terms of performance as well as in cost, thus increasing the practical prospects provided by solar-generated electricity towards serving as the ideal alternate energy source for fossil fuels.
For solar cells, the organic semiconductors prove to be quite promising as well as other uses like video-displays which can be fabricated as large plastic sheets, but their efficiency in photo-voltaic conversion is rather limited. Therefore, this discovery is expected to stimulate further progress and development.
Source: http://www.rutgers.edu/