Manufacturing

Making photovoltaic solar cells that last

By Eileen De Guire / June 1, 2011

Solar concentration mirror for PV energy generation. Credit: Replex Plastics. Yesterday, the DOE announced $27 million in new funding for projects aimed at reducing the non-hardware costs of solar energy…

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GE expands on thin-film solar, becomes near-term grid parity believer

By / June 1, 2011

CdTe array. Credit: NREL. For the first time that I am aware of, it General Electric seems to have jumped on the Sach’s Law bandwagon and decided that solar power…

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TAMU group’s ultrathin polymer–clay coating creates flexible, transparent gas barrier

By / May 9, 2011

The clay–polymer layer-by-layer process (a) and an illustration of the quadlayer nano brick wall structure of PEI (blue), PAA (green), PEI and MMT clay (red). Credit: M.A. Priolo, et al;…

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NIST news on glass transition, double graphene layers, magnet shape effects, new manufacturing blog and favored PV technologies

By / April 28, 2011

NIST measurements show that interactions of the graphene layers with the insulating substrate material causes electrons (red, down arrow) and electron holes (blue, up arrow) to collect in “puddles”. The…

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MS&T’10 beginning in Houston

By / October 17, 2010

I’ll be writing from Houston for the rest of the week, covering the MS&T’10 and the ACerS Annual Meeting events. Many consider Houston to be one of the centers of…

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