Friday, March 28, 2014: In a recent development, researchers at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) have successfully developed a new solar cell material that might hold a key spot in designing inexpensive solar cells in the days to come. The material in question: Perovskite effectively converts light into electricity but can also emit light, much to the developers’ delight. In short, the material absorbs light by day and shines by the night.
When NTU physicist Sum Tze Chien and researcher Xing Guichuan projected a laser beam on a sample of the Perovskite solar cell material, the material glowed brightly contradicting the fact that most solar cell materials are not expected to generate light after it is absorbed. The new material also has a wide array of other applications: making lasers, making light decorations or displays in shopping malls and offices. Further, Perovskite can be modified to emit different colours making it useful in light emitting devices like flat-screen TV’s and monitors. What sets it apart from other solar cell materials is that Perovskite is five times cheaper than the present Silicon-based solar cells.
Meanwhile, in another news, MIT researchers led by Timothy Lu, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and biological engineering here are currently working on a unique ‘biofilm’ that combines bacterial cells with nonliving materials like gold nanoparticles and can conduct electricity or emit light. These hybrid biofilms might soon make it possible to create circuits for photovoltaic solar panels or act as biosensors to sense toxins. The research is touted to have wide-scale applications when available commercially.
E. coli bacteria was used during the initial experiments chiefly since biofilms produced using this kind of bacteria contain ‘curli fibres’. These fibres are actually protein chains that help material attach to surfaces. These can also be modified by adding peptides, which readily trap nonliving nanoparticles (gold etc). The resulting biofilm can reproduce (via living bacteria) and conduct electricity (via non living gold nanoparticles). “It’s an interesting way of thinking about materials synthesis, which is very different from what people do now, which is usually a top-down approach,” lead researcher Timothy Lu was quoted as saying.
