Solar Cells Can be Built Using Any Semiconductor
Researchers at the Berkeley Lab and the University of California (UC) Berkeley found that inexpensive semiconductors can be used to create photovoltaic devices via a gate field, as long as a certain geometric shape of the electrode is maintained.
Solar cells could be seeing much more widespread use and application as a result of research results announced by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley. The technology is called screening-engineered field-effect photovoltaics, short SFPV. The approach utilizes the electric field effect as well as a "carefully designed partially screening top electrode" that "lets the gate electric field sufficiently penetrate the electrode and more uniformly modulate the semiconductor carrier concentration and type to induce a p-n junction."
"Our technology requires only electrode and gate deposition, without the need for high-temperature chemical doping, ion implantation, or other expensive or damaging processes," said William Regan, lead author of the study. "The key to our success is the minimal screening of the gate field which is achieved through geometric structuring of the top electrode. This makes it possible for electrical contact to and carrier modulation of the semiconductor to be performed simultaneously."
The Berkeley scientists said that they shaped the electrode contact into narrow fingers using copper oxide in one configuration and, in another configuration, they created a single-layer graphene surface. "With sufficiently narrow fingers, the gate field creates a low electrical resistance inversion layer between the fingers and a potential barrier beneath them," the researchers said. "A uniformly thin top contact allows gate fields to penetrate and deplete/invert the underlying semiconductor. This results in both configurations are high quality p-n junctions."
"Our demonstrations show that a stable, electrically contacted p-n junction can be achieved with nearly any semiconductor and any electrode material through the application of a gate field provided that the electrode is appropriately geometrically structured," Feng Wang, co-author of the study, noted.

And it's free (almost).
This is where governments should be spending money, instead of on new landmines that render people asunder.
And it's free (almost).
This is where governments should be spending money, instead of on new landmines that render people asunder.
my thoughts exactly, It would be great to have cheap panels, but unless we can make them near 20% efficient then it would take too much surface area to power the average home. But if it is efficient, and they can get it down the pipe in 5 years when I need to redo my roof then I will be a happy camper
They could try (and have tried for several years), but ultimately there is too much demand for the solar movement on all fronts. Solar (once we get it down to a cheap enough initial investment, and good battery tech) will take over the consumer/home market, and oil will be relegated to 'heavy' uses such as air travel, bulk transit (rails and boats), and military.
When things start moving solar it is going to make some huge changes in the world's power structure. Countries like the US will move to solar and natural gas/coal, while many European countries will move to solar and nuclear. 3rd world countries will then be stuck on oil, and desperate oil producing countries will make their lives a living hell.
Here in the first world we will see huge political shifts moving from the large influence of oil companies and centralized power grids to solar companies and an ever increasingly decentralized power grid which will potentially further the gap between the 'haves' and the 'have nots'. If you can afford your own power cells then you get 'free' power (or at least very cheap power) to do with as you please. If you cannot afford your own power cells, or live in a city where you do not have access to your own power source, then you will be forced to rely on power companies which will be coping with huge losses in business, while still being required to maintain a massive power grid. Hopefully we will find answers to these problems in time, but I think a lot of people overlook many of the potential problems that can occur as we move over to this new tech. As mentioned above, I'll be moving to solar regardless when it comes time to replace the roof.
What happens when a bully is accustomed to taking your lunch money, and you stop giving it to them? Not saying that we should be giving them money; But when we stop (and we will) it will likely cause a lot of problems once they become desperate.
...just like the saltwater powered car?
(conspiracy theorists are always entertaining)
Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors would be:
Cheaper, always on, far safer than today's Light Water Reactors, run on an energy source that we would literally NEVER run out of, and be able to reprocess transuranic waste from todays nuclear plants. They can also be built to desalinate water. All without producing ANY carbon. Also because it is thorium instead of enriched uranium you are literally looking at ENDING the threat of nuclear proliferation.
You combine a solar power station with some form of energy storage of course.
Can be anything from batteries to molten salt to water reservoirs etc.
Personally I'd use excess electricity to take humidity from the air, split it into Hydrogen/Oxygen and store the hydrogen. You can then later 'burn' the hydrogen as needed to produce electricity again -and get clean water as a 'waste' product.
Do you forget about the environment load the system you propose would create from development, manufacture, transport, installation, maintenance, obsolescence, and disposal/recycling? It's not necessarily less than current energy production methods.
Solar, wind, geothermal, and tidal forces are everywhere - we just have to figure out how to use them better. I once heard that there is enough geothermal energy in California to power the ENTIRE state and yet its almost entirely unused - likely due to the influence of oil and energy producing companies.
and make sure to forget the development, construction, maintenance, environmental disruption, etc. of these '0 energy' facilities (and storage facilities) is huge.
Oh, and by the way, you heard wrong about the nuclear heat output and the CA geothermal energy. Both statements are nonsense.
You'd lose 50% of the energy when splitting water, not to mention it's gathering, pumbing, and the usually low efficiency of the solar panels themselves. Even so I am pro solar; as long as it becomes widespread enough, there'll be less problems with cloudy skies. That said, I am pro nuclear as well, as a reliable and efficient supporting structure is always needed.
And these PVCs don't have to supply the whole amount of electricity needed by the house. Even 50% of the energy use would be enough to provide relief to most grids, especially in hot summer months when air conditioning uses the most energy. The good news is on those days when you need AC the most, the sun is pumping out a lot of energy to the solar cells, too.
But what if your options were low efficiency panels that can provide 20% of your needs and cost $2000 installed yourself vs more efficient panels that provide 100% of the power you need but cost $25k.
Figuring 4% increases in energy costs, $200 per month current costs and static use, I come up with the break-even being just under 4 years for the cheap system versus over almost nine years for the expensive system. Given the assumptions I made, the two cross paths at about 10 years, so if you expect to replace the system before then, you are probably better off with the cheap one. If you are using the system for over a decade, then go expensive.
though there is also the value of having the difference invested- That $23K you didn't spend up front, invested, making only 2% would push the break-even for the two systems to 12 years.
For long term base load power the only options are nuclear and geo-thermal. Contrary to what the greens will say, nukes are actually extremely environmentally friendly. Biggest hurdle is getting away from Gen I / II PWR / BWR / LWBR design's and moving onto Gen IV MSR / LFTRs. ALL our news today, every scrap of "bad" info is from the old Gen I designs. The environmentalists have been so successful in shutting down nuke designs that China and other countries are actually ahead of the USA in reactor technology. Go figure China will have safer fission plants then the USA soon.
Geo-thermal would be awesome, horizontal drilling has made it easier but we're not quite at the point where their cheap enough to use. Once we can drill and build a heat exchanger at 10km down then Geo-thermal can take off.
And of course you have the holy grail of power, Nuclear Fusion. There have been several design's being testing and worked on, one I like to follow is the poly-well concept of using electrostatics to do the confinement. Plenty of fusion fuel in the dirt under everyone's feet.