Interesting post this morning on the Thousand Suns blog.
Scientists at the Energy Department have been taking an end run around the typical methods of solar cells production, coming up with a hybrid procedure to sharply cut costs.
The scientists at the Argonne National Labs have taken nanotubes of semiconductor material and grown polymers inside them.
Their efforts to rethink the basic design of solar cells hold the promise of reduced cost because they are more energy efficient and less labor intensive.
The nanotubes are made of titanium dioxide and they filled with a polymer precursor and placed under ultraviolet light. The materials mingle at the molecular level and capture more wavelengths of light than either would alone.
According to the scientists, the hybrid cells produce 10 times more electricity from the sunlight they do absorb than do more typical solar cells, but are less efficient at collecting that sunlight.
