June 30, 2009
A solar cell which has broken a world record for efficiency has been unveiled by photovoltaic technology producer QuantaSol and will be displayed at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition this week.
The designer and manufacturer of strain-balanced quantum-well solar cells developed a single-junction device which achieves efficiency of up to 28.3 per cent, which is thought to be the best performance to date.
According to the Compound Semiconductor blog, the device is made of several nanostructures utilising two or more alloys to create synthetic crystals which overcome the problems of current solar cell design.
Kevin Arthur, chief executive officer of QuantaSol, told the news provider: "Our technology is the industry´s best kept secret. This is the first time that anyone has successfully combined high efficiency with ease of manufacture, historically a bug-bear of the solar cell industry."
Electronic product manufacturer Sharp has developed a photovoltaic solar cell module which, at 0.8 mm thick, could be used on mobile devices such as phones.
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