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Category: solar power – Page 136

Q-Dot demand in Healthcare is predicted to be high.

http://embedded-computing.com/news/rising-quantum-dots-market/#

Quantum Dots Market is driven by increasing demand for energy efficient displays and lighting solutions, North America accounted for largest quantum dots market share, use of quantum dots in solar cells and VLSI design is expected to open new possibilities for quantum dots market.

Quantum dots are semiconducting nanoparticles that range from 1nm to 10nm diameter in size and demonstrate quantum mechanical properties. The peculiarity of quantum dots is that they have ability to unite their semiconductor properties with those of nanomaterials. In addition, tunable nanocrystal size and superior optical properties have made quantum dots attractive semiconducting material for variety of applications in the field of healthcare, optoelectronics, solar energy, and security among others.

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Deep inside the electronic devices that proliferate in our world, from cell phones to solar cells, layer upon layer of almost unimaginably small transistors and delicate circuitry shuttle all-important electrons back and forth.

It is now possible to cram 6 million or more transistors into a single layer of these chips. Designers include layers of glassy between the electronics to insulate and protect these delicate components against the continual push and pull of heating and cooling that often causes them to fail.

A paper published today in the journal Nature Materials reshapes our understanding of the materials in those important protective layers. In the study, Stanford’s Reinhold Dauskardt, a professor of materials science and engineering, and doctoral candidate Joseph Burg reveal that those respond very differently to compression than they do to the tension of bending and stretching. The findings overturn conventional understanding and could have a lasting impact on the structure and reliability of the myriad devices that people depend upon every day.

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(credit: WEF)

The World Economic Forum’s annual list of this year’s breakthrough technologies, published today, includes “socially aware” openAI, grid-scale energy storage, perovskite solar cells, and other technologies with the potential to “transform industries, improve lives, and safeguard the planet.” The WEF’s specific interest is to “close gaps in investment and regulation.”

“Horizon scanning for emerging technologies is crucial to staying abreast of developments that can radically transform our world, enabling timely expert analysis in preparation for these disruptors. The global community needs to come together and agree on common principles if our society is to reap the benefits and hedge the risks of these technologies,” said Bernard Meyerson, PhD, Chief Innovation Officer of IBM and Chair of the WEF’s Meta-Council on Emerging Technologies.

The list also provides an opportunity to debate human, societal, economic or environmental risks and concerns that the technologies may pose — prior to widespread adoption.

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The flights take such a long time because Solar Impulse 2, as the name suggests, is completely powered by sunlight. The plane’s massive 72-metre wings (broader than a 747!) are covered in some 269.5 square metres of photovoltaic cells. During the day, the cells power four 14kW (17.4hp) electric motors and top-up four 41kWh lithium-ion batteries. During the evening, the motors are driven by the batteries. Max cruise speed when the sun is up is 49 knots (90km/h), and a rather languid 33 knots (60km/h) at night.

The solar cells don’t quite refill the batteries during the day, which means the plane can’t fly forever just yet. Max flight duration is somewhere around five to six days.

For power-saving reasons, the Solar Impulse 2 cockpit can only carry a single human, and is both unheated and unpressurised. The pilots do sleep while they’re up in the air, but usually just for 20 minutes at a time (the telemetry data for one flight showed 10 catnaps of 20 minutes over a 24-hour period). Now multiply those conditions by a continuous flight time of three or four days and you have some idea of the rigours that Piccard and Borschberg must go through.

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Robert Dunleavy had just started his sophomore year at Lehigh University when he decided he wanted to take part in a research project. He sent an email to Bryan Berger, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, who invited Dunleavy to his lab.

Berger and his colleagues were conducting experiments on tiny semiconductor particles called quantum dots. The optical and electronic properties of QDs make them useful in lasers, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), medical imaging, solar cells, and other applications.

Dunleavy joined Berger’s group and began working with cadmium sulfide (CdS), one of the compounds from which QDs are fabricated. The group’s goal was to find a better way of producing CdS quantum dots, which are currently made with toxic chemicals in an expensive process that requires high pressure and temperature.

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Nice.

Scientists have designed new energy-carrying particles that improve the way electrons are transported and could be used to develop new types of solar cells and miniaturized optical circuitry.

The work of researchers at the University of California (UC) San Diego, MIT, and Harvard University has synthetically engineered particles called “topological plexcitons,” which can enhance a process known as exciton energy transfer, or EET.

It’s a problem scientists have been working on for years but it’s been tricky due to the short-ranged nature of EET, which is on the scale of only 10 nanometers, or 100 millionth of a meter, according to researchers. Moreover, the energy quickly dissipates as the excitons interact with different molecules.

Continue reading “New Energy-Carrying Particles Help Advance Solar-Cell Development” | >

Low-cost, low-dimensional nanoarchitectures provide optimal structures for charge collection in large-scale solar energy harvesting and conversion applications.

Photoelectrochemical water splitting, where irradiation of a photoelectrode in water produces hydrogen and oxygen, can be used for solar energy harvesting and conversion.1 The process potentially offers a clean, sustainable, and large-scale energy resource. Photoanodes used in the photoelectrochemical process are generally made from Earth-abundant oxide semiconductors, such as titanium dioxide, tungsten trioxide, and iron (III) oxide.2 Among these metal oxide semiconductors, tungsten trioxide is regarded as one of the best candidates because of its visible light-driven photocatalytic activity, its good charge transport properties, and its relative stability in aqueous electrolytes. However, the light absorption and charge collection efficiency of tungsten trioxide—especially within a bulk structure—still needs to be improved to realize practical photoelectrochemical applications.

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Scientists at UC San Diego, MIT and Harvard University have engineered “topological plexcitons,” energy-carrying particles that could help make possible the design of new kinds of solar cells and miniaturized optical circuitry.

The researchers report their advance in an article published in the current issue of Nature Communications.

Within the Lilliputian world of solid state physics, light and matter interact in strange ways, exchanging energy back and forth between them.

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The latest of the bionic leaf. A little over a year ago reseachers made an amazing discovery on cell circuitry leaves. Here is more news from Harvard on their research on bionic leaves.

Harvard scientists designed a new artificial photosynthesis system that turns sunlight into liquid fuel, and it is already effective enough for use in commercial applications.

Here’s an alternative source of energy many have never heard of— bionic leaves.

Scientists from Harvard University just made photosynthesis more efficient with what its creators are calling the “bionic leaf 2.0.” They’ve invented a new system that splits water molecules with solar energy and produces liquid fuels with hydrogen-eating bacteria.

Continue reading “New “Bionic Leaf” Is More Efficient Than Photosynthesis” | >