Technology Review: Layer of optical fiber bristles doubles performance

According to an article by Tyler Hamilton in the May 12 edition of MIT’s Technology Review, researchers in North Carolina have developed a way to more than double the performance of organic solar cells by adding a layer of upright optical fibers that act as sunlight traps.

David Carroll, a professor of physics at Wake Forest University, led the development of a prototype solar cell incorporating the fibers, the article said.

Carroll is the chief scientist at a spinoff company called FiberCell, which is working on “a reel-to-reel manufacturing process to produce the cells,” Technology Review reported.

“We’re on the cusp of having working demonstrators that would convince someone to go into production with this,” Carroll told the publication.
Currently, the best organic solar cells are close to 8 percent efficient, although efforts are ongoing to develop organic chemistries that would increase the efficiency of such cells above 10 percent.

But Carroll told Technology Review that improved chemistries alone won't be enough to catch up to the performance of silicon cells.

Because “the answer doesn't lie in chemistry—it lies in the architecture of the cell itself,” he said, adding that dollar-for-dollar the cost of manufacturing fiber-based organic cells versus flat organic cells is about the same. BUT the factory that produces fiber-based organic cells costs “one-tenth that of a silicon foundry.”

And there’s more.

Read the full Technology Review article here, and then share your thoughts and expertise with other readers in the comments section below.