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Rutgers scientists find new material for inexpensive solar cells
A paper in Nature Genetics reports that scientists at Rutgers University have discovered new properties that may lead to better, less expensive plastic solar cells.
The scientists found that energy-carrying particles that have been generated by packets of light can travel a thousand times farther in carbon-based semiconductors that had been thought previously. The difference could mean that new solar cells designed using this technology could one day replace silicon solar cells because of lower cost and better performance.
"Organic semiconductors are promising for solar cells and other uses such as video displays, because they can be fabricated in large plastic sheets," said Vitaly Podzorov, an assistant professor of physics at Rutgers and an author of the new paper.
In their study Podzorov and his colleagues found that excitons, particles formed when semiconducting materials absorb photons, travels about 1,000 times farther in a pure crystal organic semiconductor called rubrene.
For background on plastic solar cells, check this video: