New Solar Cell Technology Developed

 

Professor Som Mitra Develops New Solar Cell Technology

Imagine if homeowners could print out plastic sheets of solar cells on inexpensive printers. Imagine further that the solar sheets could be plastered over the roofs of houses and generate electricity – acting in a sense like   mini-power stations for the houses. Such a technology would be an enormous boon to American’s growing environmental movement.

And that is the aim of  a professor of  who is experimenting with a solar cell derived from polymers that could one day power not only houses, but cars, laptops and other consumer computers.

According to him, his research about solar cells is unique because the solar cell uses a carbon nanotube complex, which is just a molecular configuration of carbon in a cylindrical shape. The name is derived from the tube’s tiny size. Nanotubes are 50,000 times smaller than a human hair. But one nanotube can conduct a current better than any electrical wire.