Bandgap Engineering has declared that it had acquired two patents indicating considerable breakthroughs in the cost and effectiveness of solar energy conversion.
The US Patent #7,973,995 titled “Designing the host of nano-structured optoelectronic devices to improve performance” includes technology for improving solar cells’ performance by surrounding the nanomaterial with a large number of scattering centers. More amount of incident light is absorbed by the obtained composite to enable efficient conversion of solar energy.
Recently, the company received U.S. Patent #7,893,512 to utilize matrix or nanowire interfaces as well as manipulate the silicon band structure at the nano-scale for optimizing silicon for energy conversion. Bandgap develops silicon-based nanowire systems to render reusable power more cost-effective, efficient, and less material-intensive than conventional grid power. The company's solar cell designs integrate cost-saving processing with crystalline silicon to obtain higher efficiency products. The attainment of these designs was possible through tunable silicon nanowires that help create cost-effective solar power.
Dr. Marcie Black, Bandgap’s CTO and Founder, stated that these recent patents indicate the hard work made by the company in enhancing nanowire technology for vast commercial applications. Both the patents reveal the path to promote cost-effective improvements in solar power performance he added. Further, he continued that Bandgap’s team is working to develop related designs and also to fabricate and develop methods that decrease solar cell manufacturing cost.
Source: http://www.bandgap.com/