It’s a considerable challenge to predict, decades in advance, what the world will need and get it from lab to market. Madeline Geocaris and Andrea Wuorenmaa at NREL summarise four case studies that reveal the key elements required: a good balance of technology, R&D, and public-private partnership; regulatory and market force alignment; good timing for market opportunities. The goal is the optimal pathway to the successful first … [Read more...]
New solar cell allows a photon to release two electrons, not just one
In conventional silicon-based solar cells, each photon of light can only knock loose a single electron, creating electricity. That’s even if the photon carries more than enough energy to do so. One hammer, one nail. Now, for the first time researchers at MIT and Princeton University in the U.S. have got high-energy photons to strike silicon and kick out two electrons instead of one, opening the door for a new kind of solar cell with greater … [Read more...]