Transparent Solar panels are here in the market for quite a long time. These are generally used to the buildings that block sunlight to reach the ground. The obstructed light is used to produce energy. But, unfortunately, the efficiency of these panels was too low. So, further engineering and development work, on it, is running.
As a result, the researchers from the University of Michigan come up with a new design that provides 8.1% of efficiency and it’s a current record. The research details are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Along with the 8.1% efficiency, these new panel design is also 43.3% transparent as the design is based on carbon, a less toxic material than silicon that is generally used in this. The assistant research scientist Yongxi Li explained to Michigan News – “The new material we developed, and the structure of the device we built, had to balance multiple trade-offs to provide good sunlight absorption, high voltage, high current, low resistance and color-neutral transparency all at the same time,”
The organic molecules of this design are specially engineered to be transparent and absorb near-infrared light that is an invisible part of the spectrum and it accounts for much of the energy.
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