Thin-film solar cells that could boost conversion efficiency by 50 percent while cutting materials costs by using less silicon will be reported this week by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers at the annual meeting of the Materials Research Society in Boston. Conventional solar cells use thick, expensive silicon substrates. The MIT researchers said they ran extensive computer simulations and laboratory experiments on 2-micron silicon films that utilize new materials for both front and back coatings. As a result, light is trapped inside the cells' silicon layer, permitting the thin-film to extract as much as 50 percent more energy per photon.
Text: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212201094
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