An all ambient, room temperature-- refined solar cell from a bare silicon wafer

• Ongoing obstacles in solar cell manufacturing may partly discuss why non-renewable power resources-- such as coal, oil, as well as natural gas-- have eclipsed current optoelectronic gadgets.

Now, scientists at Kyoto University may have discovered an ecologically friendlier solution with boosted performance, using PEDOT: PSS/silicon heterojunction solar cells. This hybrid type is made of organic-inorganic material, which could possibly ease the production process compared to conventional silicon-only solar cells.

"We wanted to avoid making solar cells in vacuums as well as high-temperature processes, which require large and also costly equipment as well as a great amount of time," discusses lead author Katsuaki Tanabe.

Expecting a difficulty, the team laid out to make solar cells from silicon wafers under just ambient temperature and also stress problems. Nonetheless, their efforts showed to yield deserving results after optimizing process conditions for the wafers.

These sleek wafers were first diced right into 8-mm square pieces as well as coated with PEDOT: PSS aqueous solution as well as silver electrodes, in a variety of sequences.

"Our approach allowed us to achieve better manufacturing rate at reduced price and also with a power generation performance over 10%," states the author.

Tanabe's group posits that this new, a lot more efficient production process may bring about large diffusion of photovoltaic or pv power generation. This system can see wider utility in numerous settings, such as in education or in developing economies.

"Next, we will focus on maximizing contaminations and additive focus in our manufacturing, along with other architectural technologies," ends Tanabe.

The findings are released in the journal PNAS Nexus.