Nano particles to Improve the Efficiency of photo-cells
Nano particles may improve the working of photo-cells.An important reason for the conversion efficiency being low is that all the light that strikes the photo cell does not get used and also that the cell cannot convert all the colours of light that are there in sunlight.
Kylie R Catchpole and Albert Polemen, working in the Institute for Atomic and Molecular physics at Amsterdam, have reported in their paper that the nano-particle method they have developed seeks to remedy these two shortcomings of solar cells.
In the normal course, a photon striking a metal would be absorbed, allowed to pass through or reflected. When the metal is in the form of a nano-particle, of the dimensions of the wavelength of light and atomic particles, however, different processes kick in - there is formed on the surface of the nano-particle a wave of electron motion, called a 'surface plasmon', which can be very intense if the properties of the particle and the light wave should match - resonance, in fact.
The Amsterdam researchers covered a solar cell with a thin coating of nanoscopic (a millionth of a millimeter) metal particles. First of all, the barrier scattered the incoming light and made sure that more of it remained within the solar cell.And then, with careful control of the size of the nano-particles, the capture of different colours of light could be tuned and the performance of poor colours also improved.
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Kylie R Catchpole and Albert Polemen, working in the Institute for Atomic and Molecular physics at Amsterdam, have reported in their paper that the nano-particle method they have developed seeks to remedy these two shortcomings of solar cells.
In the normal course, a photon striking a metal would be absorbed, allowed to pass through or reflected. When the metal is in the form of a nano-particle, of the dimensions of the wavelength of light and atomic particles, however, different processes kick in - there is formed on the surface of the nano-particle a wave of electron motion, called a 'surface plasmon', which can be very intense if the properties of the particle and the light wave should match - resonance, in fact.
The Amsterdam researchers covered a solar cell with a thin coating of nanoscopic (a millionth of a millimeter) metal particles. First of all, the barrier scattered the incoming light and made sure that more of it remained within the solar cell.And then, with careful control of the size of the nano-particles, the capture of different colours of light could be tuned and the performance of poor colours also improved.
see more
Labels: efficiency, electricity, solar
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