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Netherlands researchers break the 30 percent barrier in solar cells
- sylware 4y agoI heard about a 26% theorical limit. Wonder why now.
- Schroedingersat 4y agoI think that's the limit for a single junction with glass in front (Shockley–Queisser limit for single junction is 30% at 1.1V). This is where the balance point is from energy lost by rejecting low energy photons vs energy lost by not absorbing all the energy from the photon. Polyjunction cells overcome this limit by absorbing some photons more completely and letting others pass to another layer. This is very expensive with silicon. The current hotness is tandem perovskite cells. The silicon provides a strong substrate and market confidence in its durability over time (things perovskites are bad at). And the perovskite is very cheap to add another layer (something silicon is bad at). The hope is that - worst case - for the first generation you still have a silicon cell in >20 years, but for 5-25 years you also have the perovskite layer.
- sylware 4y agoOk, then if I understand well, this was 26% per silicon and/or perovskites layer. Being able to stack several layers of photon catching increases this rate.