Solar Cell

Honeybee Robotics has outlined a plan to build a kind of power grid on the Moon, with a network of Statue of Liberty-sized towers containing solar panels and batteries that provide power and communications, and even act as streetlights.

Perovskite materials are poised to take on the reigning champion of solar, silicon, but their stability is holding them back. Now, scientists in China have developed a new type of hybrid perovskite that boasts a very good efficiency over a long life.

Glass might soon have some competition from an unlikely rival – bamboo. Scientists in China have turned regular old bamboo into a transparent material that’s also resistant to fire and water, and suppresses smoke.

Multirotor drones may one day be able recharge their batteries while out and about, instead of having to return to a charging station. They could do so via onboard ultra-thin solar cells, which have already been tested on a small quadcopter.

Implanting tiny solar panels into people's eyeballs may sound like science fiction, but that's exactly what a team of Australian scientists are working on. The next-gen tech could vastly improve quality of life for people with incurable eye diseases.

Solar cell efficiency may get a bump from bumps. New research suggests that building tiny domes into the surface of organic solar cells could boost their efficiency by up to two-thirds, while capturing light from a wider angle.

One of the most promising, emerging solar cell technologies has received a major efficiency boost. Engineers at UNIST in South Korea have created quantum dot solar cells with a world record efficiency of 18.1%.

With the aim of allowing astronauts to live off the land as much as possible when they return to the Moon, NASA has awarded Blue Origin a US$35-million contract to develop the company's Blue Alchemist process to make solar cells out of lunar soil.

Perovskite is quickly gaining on silicon in the solar cell field, but it has one major drawback – durability. Now, a new treatment has been shown to keep perovskite solar cells working at 99% of their efficiency after 1,000 hours of use.

The dynamic duo of silicon and perovskite continue their rampage through the solar cell industry. Researchers at KAUST have developed a new silicon/perovskite tandem solar cell with a record-breaking efficiency.

Solar cells are good for the environment, but they have downsides. They’re expensive to make, and there are limited ways to recycle them. But researchers have developed a new manufacturing technique that may address both of these issues.

Solar farms and agriculture are competing for land. UCLA Scientists have now tested a way to combine the two by placing semi-transparent solar cells on the glass roofs of greenhouses, finding that they actually improve the growth of plants inside.