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Scientists just broke the record
for the highest efficiency solar cell
The solar scene is being
illuminated. And it's blinding.
A team of researchers at the US
Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has
created a solar cell with a record efficiency of 39.5 percent under
1-sun global illumination, breaking the world record for solar cell
efficiency, according to a recent study
published in the journal Joule.
Amazingly, it has the highest
efficiency recorded for any type of cell ever measured in real-world
conditions.
A record-setting solar cell
The record was accomplished
under lighting conditions equivalent to that of the sun, according
to a press release. While earlier experimental solar cells have
attained efficiencies of up to 47.1 percent, it is crucial to
emphasize that they did so under extremely concentrated light. In
fact, the world record for solar cell efficiency at 47.1 percent
was achieved in 2019, with researchers using multi-junction
concentrator solar cells developed at National Renewable Energy
Laboratory.
The solar cell was also tested
for its potential in space, especially for powering communications
satellites, which are powered by solar cells and require high cell
efficiency. Under such conditions, it was seen that it has 34.2
percent efficiency.
"The new cell is more efficient
and has a simpler design that may be useful for a variety of new
applications, such as highly area-constrained applications or
low-radiation space applications," said principal investigator Myles
Steiner, a senior scientist in NREL's High-Efficiency Crystalline
Photovoltaics Group in
an initial TechXplore report.
The secret ingredient
The novel solar cell is built on
an architecture known as inverted metamorphic multijunction (IMM)
cells. The cell has three components that generate electric current in
response to light.
Importantly, each of those
junctions is built of a different material: gallium indium phosphide
on top, gallium arsenide in the center, and gallium indium arsenide on
the bottom. As these materials specialize in various light
wavelengths, this allows the cell to capture more energy from the
whole light spectrum.
Moreover, the researchers
used "quantum wells" in the middle layer, which enabled them to
achieve the new record efficiency. When the researchers sandwiched a
conductive layer between two other materials with a wider band gap,
they were able to get the electrons confined to two dimensions, which
allowed the material to capture more light in return.
This solar cell's middle layer
comprised up to 300 quantum wells, which greatly increased the total
efficiency, according to
a report from New Atlas. However, it should be noted that
producing this type of cell is expensive, which is something that
plagues the renewables industry already. Before the novel cell can
become widespread, the researchers will need to reduce the expenses
and find potential new uses.
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