Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison create high-performance small-scale lateral solar cells for wearable medical sensors, smartwatches, and even autofocus contact lenses.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) in the United States have created high-performance small-scale lateral solar cells for wearable medical sensors, smartwatches, and even autofocus Contact lenses and so on.
The team created a densely packed, side-by-side array of miniature electrodes on top of a clear glass for isolation of light harvesting and charge transfer. Compared to about 1.8% of the conversion efficiency of other lateral cell designs, researchers built cells that achieved a conversion efficiency of 5.2% with 60% fill factor.
"It's easier to make side-by-side structures from a manufacturing point of view," said Hongrui Jiang, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at UW-Madison. "Top-down structures have to be calibrated in multiple steps, The scale of the battery is very challenging and we easily beat all the other side structures. "
Hongrui Jiang Observe the alignment of a light source illuminating a new generation of lateral solar cells. He and his team developed a solar cell that can collect more than three times more energy from incident light than in the prior art.
"Of the other structures, much of the electricity was wasted, mainly because there were no electrodes or electrodes that did not match and the technology we developed allowed us to create a very tight side-to-side structure that took advantage of the full charge."
By exploring materials that will further optimize transparency and electrical conductivity, Hongrui Jiang and the research team are working to create smaller and more efficient solar cells. Eventually, they plan to develop small-scale, flexible solar cells to power electrically-tuned contact lenses.