The UCLA has stepped on the threshold of the Big Green
industry with the invention of cheap, bendy solar panels, which can charge your
phone or car. Yang Yang, a researcher with the university’s School of
Engineering, is perfecting a new method of collecting the sun’s energy and
using it to power devices.
The signature brand of these cheap, bendy solar cells
has set the world efficiency record by converting 10.6 % of sunlight into solar
energy. Within five years, Yang says he fully expects to raise his cells'
efficiency to 15 or even 20 percent — allowing them to power everyday machines
like cars and cell phones. This will make possible powering of everyday
machines like phones and cars.
Instead of traditional silicon, the cells are crafted
out of organic polymer. These makes the cells more flexible than traditionally
brittle solar panels.The cells are made of “organic polymer” instead of the
traditional silicon, making them more flexible than those used in today's
brittle solar panels.
By embedding the new flexi-cells into a sheet, says
Yang, and the possibilities will be endless. If
these cells are embedded into a sheet, the possibilities for their uses
is unlimited. These sheets can hung on windows, covered on car rooftops like
stickers or even on the back of cell phones. These solar cells can be rolled up
as a sheet of plastic and even used as laminates.
Before this latest milestone, Yang also broke the
efficiency record in July, when his cells converted 8.6 percent of sunlight
into power. Initially, the flexi-solar cells converted only 8.6 % of sunlight
into power. However, this efficiency was increased when Yang added a special
Sumitomo layer to his cells in collaboration with the Japanese company Sumitomo
Chemical. This layer made it possible for the cells to pick up more of the
infrared spectrum.
The real invention here is a new new “tandem”
structure that allows different solar cells absorbing different spectrums of
light — like the Japanese infrared layer — to be stacked seamlessly on top of
each other.
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