Sandia National Labs, a Lockheed Martin company claims the micron-sized solar cells are as efficient as their wafer-sized cells, but consume only one hundredth the amount of semiconductor.

Measuring just 100 microns round and just 14-to-20 microns thick—including electrodes—the tiny solar cells resemble snowflakes, but can be ganged together in parallel to provide whatever current generation capacity required by an application.

In addition, they can also be wired in series to generate high voltages that are impossible with conventional solar cells. In the space required for 12 volts from a traditional solar cell, hundreds of volts can be generated by micron-sized solar cells wired in series.

Sandia also claims their solar cells small size would allow them to be affixed to flexible surfaces, even clothing, turning almost any surface into a solar panel.

In tests, Sandia demonstrated that a conventional pick-and-place robot can assemble about 130,000 of the tiny solar cells per hour over several square meters at a cost of approximately one-tenth of a cent per cell.

Funding was provided by the Department of Energy's Solar Energy Technology Program and Sandia National Laboratory's Directed Research & Development program.

By: DocMemory
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