Highly efficient solar cells collect light and heat

Schematic of solar cellDye sensitized solar cells have been widely used to capture sunlight for energy applications. Wang, Koumoto et al. now report a hybrid device which collects both the light and heat from the sun.

The overall cell is able to achieve a high conversion efficiency of 13.8%, and the authors say that it has not yet been fully optimised.

Read this exciting research at:

A novel high-performance photovoltaic–thermoelectric hybrid device
Ning Wang, Li Han, Hongcai He, Nam-Hee Park and Kunihito Koumoto
Energy Environ. Sci., 2011
DOI: 10.1039/C1EE01646F

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