Fraunhofer ISE achieves 26 percent … A team of researchers led by Dr. Armin Richter of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE achieved a record conversion efficiency of 26.0 percent for both-sides contacted silicon solar cells. In the recently published Nature Energy article “Design Rules for High-Efficiency Both-Sides-Contacted Silicon Solar Cell with Balanced Charge Carrier Transport and Recombination Losses”, Richter explains the structure of the record-breaking cell and presents fundamental design-related aspects leading to even higher efficiencies. The…
LED-based film-type haptic technology implements localized vibration. Various tactile sensations are now possible via independantly controllable vibrations. A Korean research team succeeded in developing a technology generating various vibration using LED light signals. The technology allows various tactile sensations by area and reduction in size by considerably lowering the cost of light source, and these are expected to be applied to many industries including automobile and electronics. The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, or ETRI for short, announced that it…
By binding specific ions in specially designed cages within its pores, a new membrane could enable more efficient flows in energy storage devices. Membranes that allow certain molecules to quickly pass through while blocking others are key enablers for energy technologies from batteries and fuel cells to resource refinement and water purification. For example, membranes in a battery separating the two terminals help to prevent short circuits, while also allowing the transport of charged particles, or ions, needed to maintain…
Light modulation via optical MEMS microshutter and micromirror arrays could provide huge energy savings. Buildings are responsible for 40 percent of primary energy consumption and 36 percent of total CO2 emissions. And, as we know, CO2 emissions trigger global warming, sea level rise, and profound changes in ocean ecosystems. Substituting the inefficient glazing areas of buildings with energy efficient smart glazing windows has great potential to decrease energy consumption for lighting and temperature control. Harmut Hillmer et al. of the…
In today’s world, more and more devices are being wirelessly connected to one another with the aid of intelligent sensors. As this Internet of Things keeps growing, however, it is consuming more and more power. To address this issue, Fraunhofer’s ZEPOWEL lighthouse project has prompted the development of hardware that not only makes the sensors energy-efficient, but even enables them to save energy. As a starting point, the project is focusing on two sensor nodes – one to control machines…
Empa researcher Cristina Dominguez is developing a computer model, which can be used to plan electricity grids in developing countries. To collect data, she travelled to Kenya to get an idea of how people live without electricity and what developments access to the power grid can trigger. The fact that electricity not only provides the luminous displays of our numerous gadgets, but also enables healthy, clean living spaces or even access to education in large parts of the world is…
When it comes to powering mobile robots, batteries present a problematic paradox: the more energy they contain, the more they weigh, and thus the more energy the robot needs to move. Energy harvesters, like solar panels, might work for some applications, but they don’t deliver power quickly or consistently enough for sustained travel. James Pikul, assistant professor in Penn Engineering’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, is developing robot-powering technology that has the best of both worlds. His environmentally…
The deployment of personal electronic deterrents is an effective way to prevent future deaths and injuries. With shark bites increasing in countries like Australia – scientists say the use of personal electronic deterrents is an effective way to prevent future deaths and injuries which could save the lives of up to 1063 Australians along the coastline over the next 50 years. The research, published in scientific journal Royal Society Open Science, shows that while shark bites are rare events, strategies…
Researchers from Kanazawa University fabricated a highly efficient perovskite solar cell with nearly the energy conversion efficiency of commercial silicon-based solar cells, which can be produced on a large scale. Solar cells are excellent renewable energy tools that use sunlight to drive an electrical current for power. They’ve been used to power homes since the 1980s, and their performance and production cost have improved dramatically since then. The most common solar cells, based on silicon, work well for a long…
There are worlds between the Zuse Z3, the first functioning digital computer from 1941, and modern microprocessors – both in terms of speed and size. But the further miniaturization of current silicon-based electronics is reaching its limits due to fabrication methods. Paving the way to the realization of future, even smaller circuits is molecular electronics. A team of researchers led by Dr. Katrin Domke of the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research has now made great progress in characterizing molecules…
Power converters are the little-known systems that make electricity so magical. They are what allow us to plug in our computers, lamps and televisions and turn them on in a snap. Converters transform the alternating current (AC) that comes out of wall sockets into the exact level of direct current (DC) that our electronics need. But they also tend to lose, in average, up to 20% of their energy in the process. Power converters work by using power transistors –…
Researchers from the Institute for Applied Physics (IAP) and the Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed) at TU Dresden developed a general methodology for the reproducible fabrication of high efficiency perovskite solar cells. Their study has been published in the renowned journal Nature Communications. Perovskites, a class of materials first reported in the early 19th century, were “re-discovered” in 2009 as a possible candidate for power generation via their use in solar cells. Since then, they have taken the photovoltaic…
Sulfolane-additive process yields easy fabrication, low cost, top performance, long operating life. A new, simpler solution process for fabricating stable perovskite solar cells overcomes the key bottleneck to large-scale production and commercialization of this promising renewable-energy technology, which has remained tantalizingly out of reach for more than a decade. “Our work paves the way for low-cost, high-throughput commercial-scale production of large-scale solar modules in the near future,” said Wanyi Nie, a research scientist fellow in the Center of Integrated Nanotechnologies…
The demonstration of electroluminescence at terahertz frequencies from a silicon and germanium-based device represents a significant step towards the coveted milestone of a silicon-based laser. An international team comprising scientists from Leibniz Institute for High Performance Microelectronics (IHP) has demonstrated for the first time THz light emission from n-type quantum structures made of germanium and silicon, the materials that are the basis of most commonly used electronic devices. The result of demonstration was published in the Applied Physics Letters in…
Just a few hours instead of weeks KI and HSI enable new inspection system to quickly measure foil quality for organic electronics with high spatial resolution All over the world, researchers are focusing on protecting organic light-emitting diodes, solar cells and circuits against humidity and other harmful environmental impacts by using improved foils. The idea is to make organic electronics components more robust and thus more durable. At the “LOPEC” trade fair in March 2021, the Fraunhofer Institute for Material…
30 years of ASDEX Upgrade – Operating modes developed for JET, ITER and DEMO / only tungsten machine worldwide On 21 March 1991, the ASDEX Upgrade experimental device at Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Garching/Germany generated its first plasma. The task of this most powerful national fusion device of the tokamak type in Europe is to investigate core research questions under power plant-like conditions. For 30 years now, ASDEX Upgrade has been working on plasma scenarios…
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