Copenhagen: Nano material for solar cells

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University of Copenhagen researcher Martin Aagesen has discovered a new material, nano flakes, which could make it far easier to transform solar energy to electricity.

Currently, less than 1 per cent of the world’s electricity comes from the Sun because it is relatively inefficient to transform solar energy to electricity.

Aagesen, based at the Nano-Science Center and the Niels Bohr Institute, says that nano flakes have the potential to convert up to 30 per cent of captured solar energy into electricity, twice the amount that is possible with current techniques.

The key to this is what he describes as the “perfect crystalline structure” of a nano flake, which enables it to absorb all incident light.

“The potential is unmistakeable,” says Aagesen. “We can reduce solar cell production costs, because we use less expensive semiconducting materials in the process.” At the same time, solar cells made form nano flakes will exploit the solar energy better as the distance that energy has to be transported in the cell will be shorter, thus reducing the loss of energy.

Aagesen has set up a company, SunFlake, to develop solar cells based on nano flakes.