Energy production and storage using nanotechnology

[Ecomike]

This is very interesting:

http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/030912.html

Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) announced on February 7, 2011, that the Institute successfully developed thin film amorphous silicon with good semiconducting properties using liquid silicon for the first time in the world. JAIST also noted that it made a prototype of an amorphous silicon solar cell and confirmed its high performance.

As part of its problem-solving type basic studies of the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), JAIST studied basic properties and the control technology of liquid silicon materials and successfully developed a liquid ink that has a stable coating ability. Then it developed a high efficiency thin film solar cell by establishing coating and annealing technologies to uniformly fabricate thin film amorphous silicon on a substrate.

Manufacturing amorphous solar cells using liquid silicon was considered a revolutionary low-cost manufacturing method, but it had been impossible due to substantial technical difficulties. JAIST thoroughly studied the properties of liquid silicon and exhibited this new possibility.

In the future, JAIST will organize collaborative research on higher quality silicon thin film and lower cost liquid silicon with companies, aiming for the commercialization of silicon solar cells with an equivalent cost to current commercial electricity.

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