this is the first silicon-based optical fiber with solar cell characteristics<\/p>\n
a team of researchers is working on solar cell fabrics that could catch sunlight from various angles and one day power devices like smartphones.<\/p>\n
john badding, a professor of chemistry at penn state university, along with an international team of scientists, have developed the first silicon-based optical fiber with solar cell characteristics that can be scaled up to many meters in length.<\/p>\n
badding and the team created a fiber out of crystalline silicon semiconductor materials that are capable of also acting as a solar cell. this was made possible by creating a thinner fiber that has its own integrated electronic component. this means it doesn’t need to integrate fiber-optics with chips.<\/p>\n
high-pressure chemistry techniques inserted the semiconducting materials into small holes in the optical fibers layer-by-layer. the end result was a silicon-based optical fiber that curves and twists, allowing sunlight to be collected at various angles.<\/p>\n
weaving together the silicon, solar cell wires can create fabrics capable of generating electrical power. this could be beneficial for smartphone and tablet batteries with short lifespans.<\/p>\n
“our goal is to extend high-performance electronic and solar-cell function to longer lengths and to more flexible forms. we already have made meters-long fibers but, in principle, our team’s new method could be used to create bendable silicon solar-cell fibers of over 10 meters in length,” said badding. “long, fiber-based solar cells give us the potential to do something we couldn’t really do before: we can take the silicon fibers and weave them together into a fabric with a wide range of applications such as power generation, battery charging, chemical sensing, and biomedical devices.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
this is the first silicon-based optical fiber with solar cell characteristics a team of researchers is working on solar cell fabrics that could catch sunlight from various angles and one day power devices like smartphones. john badding, a professor of chemistry at penn state university, along with an international team of scientists, have developed the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9113,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4917,4910,4891],"tags":[2153,3182,19,10,81,148],"storyfest_categories":[],"class_list":["post-13242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","tag-fabric","tag-optical-fibers","tag-penn-state","tag-solar-energy","tag-sustainability","tag-technology"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n