{"id":476,"date":"2008-02-11T10:23:30","date_gmt":"2008-02-11T10:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.energyrefuge.com\/blog\/solar-power-and-nanotechnology-2\/"},"modified":"2017-09-05T17:54:51","modified_gmt":"2017-09-05T21:54:51","slug":"solar-power-and-nanotechnology-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.energyrefuge.com\/blog\/solar-power-and-nanotechnology-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Solar power and nanotechnology"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"left off\" src=\"http:\/\/www.energyrefuge.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/07\/clean.jpg\">More news on the subject of solar power and nanotechnology, a topic that we have written about once <a href=\"http:\/\/www.energyrefuge.com\/blog\/solar-power-and-nanotechnology\/\">here<\/a>. Jin Zhang, a professor of chemistry at the University of California in Santa Cruz, is testing two nanotech methods for engineering solar cell materials that have shown particular promise, according to a statement released by the institution. <\/p>\n<p>So are you ready for the technical bit?<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>One method uses thin films of metal oxide nanoparticles, such as titanium dioxide, doped with other elements, such as nitrogen. Another strategy employs quantum dots &#8211; nanosize crystals &#8211; that strongly absorb visible light. These tiny semiconductors inject electrons into a metal oxide film, or &#8220;sensitize&#8221; it, to <strong>increase solar energy conversion<\/strong>. Both doping and quantum dot sensitization extend the visible light absorption of the metal oxide materials.<\/p>\n<p>Combining these two approaches appears to yield better solar cell materials than either one alone does, according to professor Zhang. Zhang led a team of researchers from California, Mexico, and China that created a thin film doped with nitrogen and sensitized with quantum dots. When tested, the new nanocomposite material performed better than predicted&#8211;as if the functioning of the whole material was greater than the sum of its two individual components.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have discovered a new strategy that could be very useful for enhancing the photo response and conversion efficiency of solar cells based on nanomaterials,&#8221; said Zhang. &#8220;We initially thought that the best we might do is get results as good as the sum of the two, and maybe if we didn&#8217;t make this right, we&#8217;d get something worse. But surprisingly, these materials were much better.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>For those interested in further technical details of the research, go <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ucsc.edu\/news_events\/press_releases\/text.asp?pid=1852\">here<\/a>.<br \/>\nThanks to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.treehugger.com\">Treehugger<\/a> for the tip.<\/p>\n<p><!--adsense--><\/p>\n<h3 class='related_post_title'>Related Posts:<\/h3><ul class='related_post'><li>No Related Posts Found! Go find some...<\/li><\/ul>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More news on the subject of solar power and nanotechnology, a topic that we have written about once here. Jin Zhang, a professor of chemistry at the University of California in Santa Cruz, is testing two nanotech methods for engineering solar cell materials that have shown particular promise, according to a statement released by the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-solar-power"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.energyrefuge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.energyrefuge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.energyrefuge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.energyrefuge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.energyrefuge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.energyrefuge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9929,"href":"https:\/\/www.energyrefuge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476\/revisions\/9929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.energyrefuge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.energyrefuge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.energyrefuge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}