Australians set solar cell efficiency record

William Atkins
Tuesday, 01 September 2009 18:21

Science - Energy

Solar cell researchers at the University of New South Wales have set the world record for solar power efficiency, by converting 43% of sunlight into electricity.


According to the August 25, 2009 news release (“New Solar Power World Record”) by the University of New South Wales (UNSW), the Australian led team, along with two U.S. teams, have demonstrated “… a multi-cell combination which has set the new benchmark for converting sunlight into electricity by any possible approach.”

The led researchers in the team are Dr. Martin Green, the executive research director of the UNSW ARC Photovoltaics Centre of Excellence, and Dr. Anita Ho-Baillie, senior research fellow and deputy director of the ARC Photovoltaics Centre of Excellence.

Dr. Green stated in the UNSW article, “Because sunlight is made up of many colours of different energy, ranging from the high energy ultraviolet to the low energy infrared, a combination of solar cells of different materials can convert sunlight more efficiently than any single cell.”

The UNSW team developed a silicon cell that optimized electromagnetic radiation (light) at the infrared and near-infrared end of the electromagnetic spectrum.

The electromagnetic spectrum is made up of many different types of radiation, including radio waves, microwaves, infrared (IR), visible light, ultraviolet (UV), x-rays, and gamma rays.

They differ by the length of their wavelength (largest wavelength = radio waves, smallest wavelength = gamma rays) and, thus, in their frequencies and photon energies.

Page two talks about the solar cells used by the UNSW team.