The Change Mariner

Economic Solar Power?

PACKETONLINE:

Princeton University electrical engineers have invented a technique for making solar cells that could lead to a highly economical source of energy.

The results, reported in the Sept. 11 issue of Nature, move scientists closer to making a new class of solar cells that are not as efficient as conventional ones, but could be vastly less expensive and more versatile.

Solar cells, or photovoltaics, convert light to electricity and are used to power devices from calculators to satellites. The new cells are made from organic materials, which consist of small carbon-containing molecules, as opposed to the conventional inorganic, silicon-based materials.

The materials are ultra-thin and flexible and could be applied to large surfaces.

Organic solar cells could be manufactured in a process something like printing or spraying the materials onto a roll of plastic, said Peter Peumans, a graduate student in the lab of electrical engineering professor Stephen Forrest.

"In the end, you would have a sheet of solar cells that you just unroll and put on a roof," he said.