Plastic solar cells' new design promises bright future

RSSfeed

Harvesting energy directly from sunlight to generate electricity using photovoltaic technologies is a very promising method for producing electricity in an environmentally benign fashion. Polymer solar cells offer unique attractions, but the challenge has been improving their power-conversion efficiency. Now a research team reports the design and synthesis of new polymer semiconductors and reports polymer solar cells with fill factors of 80 percent -- a first. This number is close to that of silicon solar cells.

More...