Solar Cell By Day, Light Panel By Night

Scientists at NTU have developed a cheaper solar panel that could also double up as a display screen.

AsianScientist (Mar. 27, 2014) – Nanyang Technological University (NTU) scientists have developed a next-generation solar cell material which can also emit light, in addition to converting light to electricity.

This phenomenon was discovered almost by chance when NTU physicist Sum Tze Chien, asked his postdoctoral researcher Xing Guichuan to shine a laser on the new hybrid perovskite solar cell material they were developing.

To the team’s surprise, the new perovskite solar cell glowed brightly when a laser beam was shone on it, said Assistant Professor Sum. This is significant as most solar cell materials are good at absorbing light but are generally not expected to generate light. In fact, this highly luminescent new perovskite material is also very suitable for the making of lasers.

“What we have discovered is that because it is a high quality material, and very durable under light exposure, it can capture light particles and convert them to electricity, or vice versa,” said Sum, a scientist at NTU’s School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (SPMS).

“By tuning the composition of the material, we can make it emit a wide range of colours, which also makes it suitable as a light emitting device, such as flat screen displays.”

His research partner, Assistant Professor Nripan Mathews from the School of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) and the Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N), said this newly discovered property is expected to enable the industry to feasibly adopt the material for use into existing technology.

“Such a versatile yet low-cost material would be a boon for green buildings. Since we are already working on the scaling up of these materials for large-scale solar cells, it is pretty straightforward to modify the procedures to fabricate light emitting devices as well. More significantly, the ability of this material to lase, has implications for on-chip electronic devices that source, detect and control light,” he added.

The advanced material, which is currently patent pending, is five times cheaper than current silicon-based solar cells. This is due to its easy solution-based manufacturing process, which works by combining two or more chemicals at room temperature.

The article can be found at: Xing et al. (2014) Low-temperature solution-processed wavelength-tunable perovskites for lasing.

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Source: Nanyang Technological University.

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