A research team led by Yung Shin, a professor of mechanical engineering and director of Purdue University's Center for Laser-Based Manufacturing solar cells will become both cost and performance efficient with a production technique that uses an ultrafast pulsing laser.
This development will make it easier to solve two issues prevalent currently, in the global use of solar cells, specifically to make the process cost -efficient and to find a way to convert the solar energy into electric energy.
Minute microchannels integrate solar panels into an array to produce useable quantities of power. The earlier scribing methods, by which the channels are developed mechanically with a stylus, are slow, costly and imperfect, hampering the performance of the solar cells. The team says that the new method could increase efficiency in a cost- efficient manner with an ultra short pulse laser that will develop the microchannels in thin-film solar cells.
The research worked with a $425,000 grant spread over three years from the National Science Foundation. It is led by Shin and Gary Cheng, who is an associate professor of industrial engineering. A paper on the feasibility of the new method was recently published in the 2011 NSF Engineering Research and Innovation Conference book in January. The paper was co-authored by Shin, Cheng, and graduate students Wenqian Hu, Martin Yi Zhang and Seunghyun Lee.
Source: http://www.purdue.edu/