From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Nov 23 2002 - 18:54:55 MST
--- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury@aeiveos.com> wrote:
>
> Wow. This is the first article I've seen discussing
> breaking through the ~30-35% solar cell efficiency
> barrier and pushing it perhaps as high as 70%.
>
> An Unexpected Discovery Could Yield A Full Spectrum Solar Cell
> http://www.spacedaily.com/news/solarcell-02m.html
>
> It looks like we should be investing in indium mines now.
I'm not surprised. In my discussions a decade ago with Luminescent
Systems, the manufacturer of my EL Retrofit Kit, about various
materials used in construction of electroluminescent lamps, we
discussed how the EL state of the art had shifted to indium-tin oxide
for front electrodes of said lamps, which generate light in a solid
state fashion, much like the reverse of the function of a solar cell.
ITO became the norm due to its high efficiency (EL lamps are generally
97-99.5% efficient in energy to light conversion), after silicon,
gallium, and many other semiconductor materials were discarded over the
years. I had asked why indium wasn't used in solar cells, for which
they had no answer.
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