The second law of thermodynamics prohibits a solar cell with 100% efficiency. More specifically, Carnot's theorem applies to photovoltaic energy and any other solar energy system, where the hot side of the heat engine is the temperature of the Sun and the cold side is the Earth's ambient temperature. The team, a multinational collaboration, published its findings this morning in the Journal of Solar Materials. In the case of satellites, on the other hand, efficiency defines the size and weight of the solar panels needed to power the spacecraft, which directly affects manufacturing and launch costs.
For a solar cell in space, the crucial metric is the value at the end of its useful life, after the device has been bombarded by radiation. For CPV to have a chance to succeed in space, the large, heavy solar modules used in early terrestrial systems must be replaced by a significantly smaller successor. In other words, a panel with 100% efficiency would be able to transform all the light that reaches the panel into electrical energy. This research could make converting sunlight into chemical fuels more efficient by collecting more energy from highly energetic photons.
Adding perovskites (which can be applied to any flexible surface with a special ink) to traditional silicon cells increases the sensitivity of solar panels to different parts of the solar radiation spectrum. The company that develops solar cells using perovskite announced in December that it had achieved a (record) conversion efficiency of 28% for its tandem perovskite-based solar cell. Recognize the support of the solar photochemistry program of the Chemical Sciences, Geosciences and Biosciences Division. Much of the current research on multi-junction solar cells doesn't focus on power generation here on Earth, so while that 50% milestone is temptingly close, it may not be broken any time soon.
The perovskites of interest to the solar industry are “manufactured in a laboratory and not extracted from Earth”. However, these cells are not perfect: even after minimizing material defects that degrade performance, the best solar cells made with GaAs continue to struggle to achieve efficiencies greater than 25%. When Geisz and his colleagues evaluated how the performance of their six-junction cell varies with concentration, they discovered that maximum efficiency occurs at 143 soles. Other benefits are gained by stacking different semiconductors on top of each other and carefully selecting a combination that efficiently collects the Sun's rise.
The key advantage here is that high-efficiency cells can reduce the manufacturing and launch costs of each satellite.
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