Thursday, January 19, 2012

No. 414: A solar battery with 100 times more generation capacity than the existing one (January 19, 2012)

Technology
A researcher of National Institute of Materials Science developed a solar battery that has a new structure to increase the generation of a silicon solar battery to 100 times as compared with the existing one. Naoki Fukata lined an infinite number of peaked micro silicon bars to increase the area that receives sunlight. Theoretically, it is possible to decrease the area to one hundredth for the same generation capacity. That is, a 5 x 5 m solar battery installed on the roof can be made smaller to a 5 x 5 cm solar battery. That is, the new solar battery will be installable regardless of the place with easiness of maintenance.

The newly developed solar battery has numerous standing peaked silicon bars, each of which is about 5 micrometers long and 90 nanometers in diameter, at intervals of about 100 nanometers on the surface. This structure made it possible to convert the light whose wavelength is less than 600 nanometers that has been wasted. Accordingly, it has become possible to get 100 times more generation capacity per area as compared with the existing structure that piles up silicon materials. Because a small solar battery can maintain a certain amount of generation capacity, the newly developed solar battery will very suitable for solar-tracking generation equipment. The research group plans to put the new technology into practical application in five years.

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