One of NASA’s key priorities is understanding the potential for life elsewhere in the universe. NASA has not found any credible evidence of extraterrestrial life—but NASA is exploring the solar system and beyond to help us answer fundamental questions, including whether we are alone in the universe.
Silicon wafers produced by the Czochralski process with micrometer-scale pyramidal structural elements on their surfaces are significantly cheaper.
These microtextures capture more light because they are less reflective than a smooth surface. However, coating these wafers with perovskite results in many defects in the crystal lattice, which affect the electronic properties.
However, the team of researchers has developed a strategy for surface passivation that allows the surface defects of the perovskite layer to be smoothed out.
The transport sector is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in Hong Kong, accounting for 19% of total emissions. Supporting the development of green transport can help reduce air pollutant emissions. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is committed to promoting research into green technologies to support Hong Kong’s goal of reducing the City’s total carbon emissions from the 2005 level by half before 2035 and achieving carbon neutrality before 2050.
A research team led by Prof. Eric Cheng, Professor of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at PolyU, received support from the “Innovation and Technology Support Program (Mid-stream, theme-based)” last June for the research project “Smart Refrigeration Truck Development Program—Power, Solar and Intelligence Method for Logistics and Storage.” The project is aimed at promoting the transformation of freezer trucks from traditional fuel driven freezer system to smart electric driven and strengthening the wider adoption of solar energy.
After one year, the PolyU team has successfully developed a novel freezer truck that supports a solar-powered freezer system and features vehicle-connected power storage and sharing technology. The project has received staunch support from the government, academia and industry, including from Sunlight Eco-tech Limited, Advanced Sunlight Pty Limited from Australia, and the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department.
The expansion of solar photovoltaic systems in Germany continues to grow as more companies and private households opt for solar energy.
Scientists are closer to giving the next generation of solar cells a powerful boost by integrating a process that could make the technology more efficient by breaking particles of light—photons—into small chunks.
In a study published in Nature Chemistry researchers unravel the scientific understanding of what happens when light particles split—a process called singlet fission —and its underlying workings.
Lead researcher Professor Tim Schmidt from UNSW Sydney’s School of Chemistry has studied singlet fission for more than a decade. He says the process could be invoked and applied to improve existing silicon solar cell technologies.
This remarkable miniature rotorcraft is so lightweight and efficient that it can lift its own mass given nothing but sunlight. The entire thing weighs about as much as four paperclips, and it can fly all day if the sun’s shining.
Researchers at China’s Beihang University and the Center of Advanced Aero-Engine, have unveiled CouloumbFly, a palm-sized miniature rotorcraft that weighs just 4.21 g (0.15 oz) – yet still boasts a rotor diameter of 20 cm (7.9 in), making it around 600 times lighter than any other comparable small solar-powered drone.
In tethered testing under natural sunlight conditions, CouloumbFly got itself airborne within a second and managed an hour of flight without power diminishing, before a mechanical failure brought it back down. Not much of a big deal if it was a glide-capable winged drone – but this is a miniature helicopter that’s entirely responsible for generating its own lift, and managing that on solar energy alone is an extraordinary feat.
Two 650-foot-tall (200-m) towers have risen in China’s Gansu Province. Combined with an array of 30,000 mirrors arranged in concentric circles, the new facility is expected to generate over 1.8 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity every year.
While photovoltaic panels that directly convert sunlight to electricity are what most people think of when they hear the term “solar power,” there is another method of harvesting the Sun’s power that’s been steadily developing since the early 1980s. Known as solar thermal or concentrated solar power (CSP), these systems rely on mirrors known as heliostats to bounce sunlight to a central gathering point. There, the concentrated beams heat a transfer fluid that in turn heats a working fluid. This fluid then evaporates, turns a turbine, and generates electricity.
In 2014, what was then the world’s largest solar thermal power station opened in the Mojave Desert in the United States. Known as the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, the facility consists of three different towers surrounded by heliostat arrays and has a capacity of 392 megawatts. In 2017, Australia announced that it was building the world’s largest single-tower solar thermal power plant with a proposed output of 150 megawatts, although that project was ultimately killed in 2019. The world’s largest CSP, the Noor Complex Solar Power Plant, now operates in the Sahara Desert in Morocco where it churns out 510 megawatts of power.
In the search for more efficient and sustainable energy generation methods, a class of materials called metal halide perovskites have shown great promise. In the few years since their discovery, novel solar cells based on these materials have already achieved efficiencies comparable to commercial silicon solar cells.
Scientists at the City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) have developed highly efficient, printable and stable perovskite solar cells to achieve carbon neutrality and promote sustainable development.
The new type of perovskite solar cells can be mass-produced at a speed comparable to newspaper printing, with a daily output of up to 1,000 solar panels. Owing to their flexible, semi-transparent characteristics, they can also be made into light-absorbing glass windows, realizing the concept of “urban solar farms” in cities with many high-rise buildings.
The research is led by the Lee Shau Kee Chair Professor of Materials Science at CityUHK, Professor Alex Jen Kwan-yue, and the results were published in Nature Energy.
In the past decade, metal-halide perovskites have rapidly progressed as a semiconductor, surpassing silicon in their ability to convert light into electric current since their initial discovery.
Simulations on TACC’s Frontera and Lonestar6 supercomputers have revealed surprising vortex structures in quasiparticles of electrons and atoms, called polarons, which contribute to generating electricity from sunlight.
This new discovery can help scientists develop new solar cells and LED lighting. This type of lighting is hailed as an eco-friendly, sustainable technology that can reshape the future of illumination.
