Bringing color to solar facades
Until now, designers of buildings have no choice but to use black or bluish-gray colored solar panels. With the help of thin-film technologies, researchers have now been able to turn solar cells into...
View ArticleFirst-ever US roadmap for CIGS solar technologies
The U.S. Photovoltaic Manufacturing Consortium (PVMC), an industry-led collaboration headquartered at SUNY's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) in New York that is designed to...
View ArticleSolar could meet California energy demand three to five times over
In the face of global climate change, increasing the use of renewable energy resources is one of the most urgent challenges facing the world. Further development of one resource, solar energy, is...
View ArticleStudy identifies the challenges facing large-scale deployment of solar...
In a broad new assessment of the status and prospects of solar photovoltaic technology, MIT researchers say that it is "one of the few renewable, low-carbon resources with both the scalability and the...
View ArticleYet more opportunities for organic semiconductors
From 'Radio frequency identification' (RFID) tags to OLED displays and photovoltaic cells, organic semiconductors' high potential is widely recognised. A Marie Curie project has set out to bring...
View ArticleWhich type of sustainable rooftop technology is best in cold climates?
Sustainable rooftop technologies—including green roofs, white roofs, and solar photovoltaic panels—can provide great environmental benefits, but studies of these technologies often look only at their...
View ArticleOrganic semiconductors will create cheaper, greener devices
Research into organic semiconductors could lead to more efficient LED TVs and flexible solar cells that are cheaper to make and take less energy to produce according to researchers at the University of...
View ArticleResearchers develop a novel organic device for obtaining hydrogen from water...
Hydrogen has great potential as a fuel. Researchers at the Photovoltaic and Optoelectronic Devices Group at the Universitat Jaume I have developed an organic device reduces water into hydrogen using...
View ArticleEnergy efficiency and the future of long-distance flight
Andre Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard have suffered set-backs in their quest to circumnavigate the earth in an experimental solar-powered aircraft. The Swiss nationals are flying Solar Impulse 2, whose...
View ArticleWhat are the different types of renewable energy?
Renewable energy is becoming an increasingly important issue in today's world. In addition to the rising cost of fossil fuels and the threat of Climate Change, there has also been positive developments...
View ArticleTowards graphene biosensors
For the first time, a team of scientists has succeeded in precisely measuring and controlling the thickness of an organic compound that has been bound to a graphene layer. This might enable graphene to...
View ArticlePlasmonics study suggests how to maximize production of 'hot electrons' for...
New research from Rice University could make it easier for engineers to harness the power of light-capturing nanomaterials to boost the efficiency and reduce the costs of photovoltaic solar cells.
View ArticleMicroscopic rake doubles efficiency of low-cost solar cells
Researchers from the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have developed a manufacturing technique that could double the electricity output of inexpensive...
View ArticleDesigning bespoke nanomaterials for energy applications
anomaterials have the potential to play a central role in solving many of today's biggest sustainability issues, whether it's developing more efficient renewable energy technologies, removing...
View ArticleHybrid solar cell converts both light and heat from sun's rays into electricity
Scientists have developed a new hybrid, solar-energy system that harnesses the full spectrum of the sun's radiation by pairing a photovoltaic cell with polymer films. The films convert the light that...
View ArticleVideo: 'Terawatt challenge' seeks game changers in photovoltaics
Modern society is very much defined by its access to electricity. What if researchers could advance sustainable energy technologies to the point where everyone around the world had access to clean,...
View ArticleModeling electron excitation in organic photovoltaic material could change...
Organic photovoltaic material offers great promise for solar energy. The semi-conducting plastic is lightweight, flexible, relatively inexpensive, and easy to make. The problem is that, unlike...
View ArticleThe topolariton, a new half-matter, half-light particle
A new type of "quasiparticle" theorized by Caltech's Gil Refael, a professor of theoretical physics and condensed matter theory, could help improve the efficiency of a wide range of photonic...
View ArticleSilver: The promising electrode winner for low-cost perovskite solar cells
Perovskite solar cells are the rising star in photovoltaics. They absorb light across almost all visible wavelengths, they have exceptional power conversion efficiencies exceeding 20% in the lab, and...
View ArticleUltrathin perovskite nanocrystals suitable for use in tunable and...
Perovskites have recently emerged as a most promising material for low-cost production of highly efficient solar cells. In particular, the so-called organic-inorganic metal halide perovskites are among...
View Article