By Ruby Prosser Scully

Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST)

Your workplace windows might quickly be changed with photovoltaic panels, as researchers have discovered a simple way to turn the green innovation transparent. The technique is to punch small holes in them that are so close together that we see them as clear.

See-through solar panels will be important to increasing the uptake of solar power in cities, says Kwanyong Seo at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea.

This is due to the fact that roofing system space remains reasonably fixed, whereas window area is growing as structures get taller. “If we apply transparent solar batteries on windows of structures, they can create big quantities of electrical power every day,” says Seo.

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The issue with just recently developed transparent cells is that they are frequently less efficient. They also tend to provide the light that passes through them a red or blue hue.

To conquer this, numerous researchers are searching for brand-new products to construct transparent cells with. Nevertheless, Seo and his associates wished to develop transparent solar batteries from the most commonly utilized product, crystalline silicon wafers, which are found in about 90 per cent of solar batteries worldwide.

They took 1-centimetre square cells made from crystalline silicon, which is completely opaque, then punched tiny holes into them to let the light through.

The holes are 100 micrometres in diameter, around the size of a human hair, and they let 100 per cent of the light through without changing its colour.

The solid part of the cell still takes in all of the light that hits it, which leads to a high power-conversion efficiency of 12 percent. This is substantially much better than the 3 to 4 per cent that other transparent cells have achieved, however stays lower than the 20 percent performance that the very best completely opaque cells presently on the market have.

In the coming years, Seo and his coworkers hope to develop a cell that has a performance of at least 15 per cent. To make the product valuable, they will likewise need to develop an electrode that is transparent.

Journal reference: Joule, DOI: 10.008