Oklahoma physicist discovers the hidden potential of high-efficiency solar cells

• One of the best difficulties of solar cells is the Shockley-Queisser restriction, the presumption that there is a basic limit for energy a solar cell can absorb and also convert into functional energy. College of Oklahoma physicist Ian Sellers is showing that the commonly held assumption is false.

Sellers, an associate professor in the Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and also Astronomy in the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences, has received a $310,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to demonstrate the utility of some generally used semiconductors to significantly enhance the effectiveness of solar cells.

" It was constantly presumed a semiconductor might only convert a lot power from the sunlight since it would either shed energy as heat or that sunshine would be too low-energy to be recorded," Sellers said. "It was thought about that this solitary gap limit can not relapse."

" What we located was a physical effect that exists in conventional optoelectronic products currently used precede solar cells," he added. "This is a natural impact, not related to exotic quantum frameworks or processes, and we recognized we could make fairly easy solar cells based on traditional materials currently used in optoelectronics for lasers, LEDs and all examples that has the potential for us to realize an extremely high-efficiency solar cell."

The potential effectiveness that could be realized via this procedure enhances what until now has been thought about the industry common limitation of roughly 30%, to a breakthrough maximum performance of above 60%.

" Among the significant issues with solar cells is that, presently, most industrial solar cells can just harness concerning 20% of the sun's power," Sellers claimed. "What occurs is that these solar cells absorb very-high power light from the sunlight as well as any excess energy develops into heat. It heats up the product and that's a loss - it's not something a standard solar cell converts to electrical power."

A generally used team of semiconductors known as III-V semiconductors, and what Sellers refers to as the "workhorse" systems of optoelectronics, generate as well as conduct this unwanted warm very effectively, making this a big issue for traditional solar cells. A discussion with a coworker at Arizona State College brought to light a possible brand-new strategy to harness this shed power and also better transform sunlight to electricity prior to the generation of warm occurs.

" I started collaborating with a theorist at Arizona who was working with high-mobility transistors where the impact we're utilizing is a trouble for high-mobility transistors," Sellers claimed. "What we've discovered is the capacity to keep excess power in the product prior to warm generation, as well as we can save it there for long enough that our fee providers, the electrons created by light absorption, can possibly be removed before the power is lost as warmth."

" What's amazing concerning this work is that there isn't anything unique - it's always existed," he added. "It's a natural process that is a trouble in particular transistors, but also for solar, maybe extremely useful."

The three-year grant will certainly additionally support graduate and undergraduate students in Sellers' lab to get useful skills in basic gadget physics and innovation transfer.

" What trainees discover here is a strong understanding of just how a gadget works as well as the systems that inhibit enhanced efficiency, in addition to the significance of finding a particular niche in a location that can be boosted or used in a new way," Sellers claimed. "They obtain a very distinct viewpoint of just how scholastic study relates to actual technology."