ABCNEWS.com : A Flexible Solar Panel for Clothes Scientists at the University of California at Berkeley say their latest research work in producing cheap, plastic solar cells may lead to such stunning possibilities.
According to A. Paul Alivisatos, a chemistry professor and lead researcher on the project, the experimental solar cells use tiny rods of cadmium selenide, a material similar to those used in computer chips.
The rods measure just 7 nanometers — 7 billionths of a meter — wide and 60 nanometers long and are suspended in an organic polymer, or plastic. The mixture is then sandwiched between two electrodes, one of transparent plastic and the other of flexible aluminum.
The experimental cell works just like other commercially-available photovoltaic cell. When exposed to sunlight, the "nanorods" of cadmium selenide material yields an electron and a related "hole" or vacancy. The electrons move through the rod to the aluminum electrode while the hole moves toward the other electrode, creating "positive" and "negative" terminals, just like a battery.
And in lab tests, a prototype solar cell about 200 nanometers thick — one-thousandth the thickness of a human hair — can produce just over half the voltage of a common flashlight battery.