A team of researchers at UCLA have developed a new transparent solar cell that has the ability to generate electricity while still allowing a view of the outside.

This new kind of polymer solar cell (PSC) produces an electrical current by absorbing infrared light and not visible light, which makes the cells nearly 70% transparent to the human eye.

Visibly Transparent Polymer Solar Cells Produced by Solution Processing courtesy of UCLA

“Our new PSCs are made from plastic-like materials and are lightweight and flexible,” said study leader Yang Yang, a UCLA professor of materials science and engineering. “More importantly, they can be produced in high volume at low cost.”

The transparent conductor, another breakthrough, is made of silver nanowire and titanium dioxide nanoparticles, which replaces the opaque metal electrodes used in the past. This composite electrode also allows the solar cells to be fabricated economically by solution processing. With this combination, 4% power-conversion efficiency for solution-processed and visibly transparent polymer solar cells has been achieved.

“We are excited by this new invention on transparent solar cells, which applied our recent advances in transparent conducting windows (also published in ACS Nano) to fabricate these devices,” said Paul S.Weiss, CNSI director and Fred Kavli Chair in NanoSystems Sciences.

Source

UCLA Newsroom, UCLA researchers create highly transparent solar cells for windows that generate electricity