A small and portable solar cell module constructed with nano-sized gold “antennae” that help gather and concentration light, boosting the cell’s efficience by up to 10 per cent. (Photo credit: Henry Leparskas)
Researchers have created tiny gold antennae that gather and concentrate light in order to increase the efficiency of solar cells by up to ten per cent. Solar cells often don’t absorb very well in the red or infrared part of the solar spectrum. Previous researchers have tried to use gold nanoparticles – which do capture and concentrate light at these frequencies – to boost performance.
The new antennas look more like filaments assembled to form sparse nets and use a much smaller amount of gold – the building block are clusters of as little as 144 atoms.
The process for making them is simple and inexpensive, and could be used on ordinary silicon solar cells as well as emerging technologies like organic solar cells, which are cheaper but currently limited by low efficiency.
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Original research paper published in the journal Nanoscale on May 6, 2014.
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