New nano coating boosts solar efficiency
Researchers have developed a new anti-reflective coating that boosts the efficiency of solar panels and allows sunlight to be absorbed from almost any angle. Scientists from the Future Chips Constellation (FCC) at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York have created the coating using nanotechnology -- engineering devices on a molecular scale.
They are hopeful that it can transform the solar energy market in the coming years. A typical untreated silicon solar cell absorbs just over two thirds of the sunlight it receives. But with the FCC's nanoengineered coating, that figure rises to 96.21 percent.
In their paper: "Realization of a near perfect antireflection coating for silicon solar energy utilization," published in the scientific journal Optics Letters, researchers report that gains in absorption were consistent across the entire spectrum of sunlight -- ultraviolet, visible light, and infrared.
