JANUARY 31, 2005 By Olga Kharif Solar Cells: The New Light FantasticA novel and inexpensive material that ekes current from even the weakest rays could someday make the world a cleaner, greener placeOne
day last July, Ted Sargent was typing away in his
office at the University of Toronto when a graduate
student rushed in. His excited visitor explained
that he had just shone infrared light -- invisible
to the human eye -- onto a tiny sample of a special
material Sargent and his researchers had developed,
and the sample actually converted the light into
energy. Always the skeptic, Sargent asked, "Did
you turn the
[overhead] lights off?" NARROWING THE GAP.To
bridge that price gap, scientists have long attempted
to develop so-called plastic solar cells. Essentially,
they're a thin film that can be manufactured through
a much cheaper process, one analogous to a newspaper
printing press. They can be flexible and light.
Plastic solar cells can also, potentially, be simply
sprayed onto any surface -- and, voila! -- that
wall, roof, or consumer electronics case becomes
a solar-energy collector. Goodbye, ugly solar-panel
roofs. Goodbye, lead storage batteries. Welcome,
walls, cars, MP3 players, even shirts doubling
as
electricity generators. EXCITED ELECTRONS.Sargent's
discovery could drastically increase plastic solar
cells' light absorption -- and tip the cost-benefit
scale in favor of the cells. A plastic solar cell
that captures both visible and infrared light might
be able to reach 30% efficiency, figures Peter
Peumans, an organic-electronics expert at Stanford
University. LONG ROAD.The
work is far from done, of course. Sargent's still-unnamed
material will have to be improved before it's used
in commercial products. So far, it can convert
only a very small amount of infrared light into
energy -- about 1,000 times less than what's needed
for commercial use. "We have a hint of a solution,
maybe," says Stanford's Peumans.
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