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I thought solar conversion efficiency was a large fraction already. There's no room for 1000x improvement. Maybe 20%. What is this title talking about?
by JoeAltmaier 5y ago
I thought solar conversion efficiency was a large fraction already. There's no room for 1000x improvement. Maybe 20%. What is this title talking about?
- binarymax 5y agoA similar question was in the comments of the article and reply from the Author: --- Ralph A Hutton August 6, 2021 at 1:40 am 1000 times? That means a normal size panel ,area about one square meter, that produces 200 watts , would be capable of an output of 200 kW. I look forward to that. I believe, and this needs confirming, the maximum available power from one square meter is about one kW. What have I misunderstood? Reply --- Ryan Kennedy August 6, 2021 at 1:46 am Our apologies for not making this clear. The photovoltaic effect was increased by 1000 times compared to previous output achieved from cells made of ferroelectric crystals, not from prevailing solar cells made of silicon or other conventional materials.**
- throwaway4220 5y agoCan we change title to reflect this?
- MattRix 5y agoI don’t know if the title was already changed since you wrote this comment, but the current title of “Crystal arrangement results in 1,000x more power from ferroelectric solar cells” is accurate.
- czbond 5y agoCan someone explain this to me like I'm 5 for me?
- karmajunkie 5y agothe previous best output for this type of solar cell was nowhere near the state of the art. they found a more efficient structure that narrows the gap. the advantage of this type of solar cell is that it’s potentially much easier to produce, but before now it’s efficiency has been very low compared to the state of the art.
- Waterluvian 5y agoThis Red widget is 1000x better than older Red widget designs. Even though Green widgets are still much better.
- headmelted 5y agoBut red widgets might be cheaper to mass produce. Maybe. I don't know I'm knee deep in analogies now.
- dylan604 5y agoBut how long do red widgets last compared to the green widgets? Since red widgets have been so woefully under performing compared to the green widgets, has anyone seriously looked at the red widget for long term viability or is this just flash in the pan type performance? Just to beat up the analogy further.
- connicpu 5y agoFrom what the article stated, it seems the longest term testing they did was firing a laser at the red widget for 6 months straight and it maintained constant current the entire time
- infogulch 5y agoSay ferroelectric crystals used to be 0.01% efficient, and this paper brings it to 10%. That would be an increase of 1000x, but still below the current best which is ~20%-30%. (The 0.01%/10% percentages are illustrative only, I don't know what is claimed in the paper.)
- ehsankia 5y agoin the email above, "that produces 200 watts" is the wrong baseline. That's the current value for a different technology.
- VMG 5y agojust look for the qualifier in this case "ferroelectric"
- wlesieutre 5y agoI think the confusion people are having with "Crystal arrangement results in 1,000x more power from ferroelectric solar cells" is that it doesn't have a qualifier like "more power than current ferroelectric solar cells." It only tells you what type the new ones are. You have to infer that it's comparing new ferroelectric cells to old ferroelectric cells, and not comparing new ferroelectric cells to our typical silicon cells. But an article doing the latter could be written with exactly the same title.
- minitoar 5y agoThe article says “the current flow was up to 1,000 times stronger”. I don’t know what that means.
- dharmab 5y agoThese are ferroelectric, rather than the more efficient silicon cells used for most solar energy.