Solar Cells That Improve With Heat
May 17, 2016
The Tower – An international team of scientists, including Prof. Jeffrey M. Gordon and Prof. Eugene A. Katz of BGU’s Alexandre Yersin Department of Solar Energy and Environmental Physics, has reported a major advance in the physics of perovskite solar cells.
Prof. Eugene Katz
“Perovskite” refers to a specific type of crystal structure, originally identified by 19th century Russian mineralogist L.A. Perovski. Perovskite solar cells are far less expensive than those made by silicon, and can be manufactured at temperatures 1000 degrees Celsius below what silicon cells require.
Prof. Jeffrey Gordon
Unlike most other solar devices, where efficiency worsens as temperature rises, the research team produced high-performance cells whose efficiency actually improved as the cells heated up.
The new study, which was recently published in the scientific journal Advanced Materials, suggests deploying perovskite solar cells under concentrated sunlight could realize even greater efficiency — one of the next tasks in the researchers’ planned experiments.
Read more on The Tower website >>
Stories Like This
