As the Physicist Organizational Network reported on March 24, a joint research team from Denmark and Switzerland has proved that the sunlight intensity gathered by single-nanowire can reach 15 times more than the ordinary light intensity. The surprising research results have great potential in the development of nanowire-based new solar cells with high efficiency. It implies that the conversion limit of solar energy can be potentially improved. Related paper is published in the Journal of Nature-Photonics.

Nanowire based solar cells hold promise for third generation photovoltaics and for powering nanoscale devices. In the avenue of third generation photovoltaics, solar cells will become cheaper and more efficient than current devices, in particular a cost reduction may be achieved by the possibility of rationalizing the material use through the fabrication of nanowire arrays and radial p-n junctions. The geometry of nanowire crystals is expected to favour elastic-strain relaxation, giving a major freedom for designing new compositional multi-junction solar cells grown on mismatched materials. Till today, the efficiencies of nanostructured solar cells have indeed been increasing with time up to 10%, owing to the improvement of material and device concepts. This work represents a critical step towards the next generation of nanowire based solar cells.

For research scientists, it is undoubtedly exciting to break through the theoretical limit! Although few percentage improvements sound not that much, but it has significant impact on development of solar cells, use of nanowire-based solar energy, as well as development of world’s energy. However, Krogstrup pointed out that there is still a long way to go for the nanowire-based solar cells to be put into commercial production.

For more reading on Nature-Photonics: http://www.nature.com/nphoton/journal/v7/n4/full/nphoton.2013.32.html