"Near Perfect" Absorption of Sunlight"
Summary: An untreated silicon solar cell only absorbs 67.4 percent of sunlight shone upon it — meaning that nearly one-third of that sunlight is reflected away and thus unharvestable. After being treated with Lin’s new nanoengineered reflective coating, the material absorbed 96.21 percent of sunlight shone upon it. This huge gain in absorption was consistent across the entire spectrum of sunlight and moves solar power a significant step forward toward economic viability.
(this summary was copied and pasted directly from the article linked to above)
Go, go, Team Rensselaer! I read this on Wakachan's News board this morning. Preeeetty cool stuff! Even if solar energy isn't the wave of the future for energy harvesting (as many a critic is keen on saying), I still feel that this coating will prove invaluable for many engineering research projects which deal with optics. The ability to increase an optic receiver's efficiency by nearly 50% (from 67% to 96% efficiency) is simply remarkable.
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I've actually considered buying up stock in solar power companies (as my friend Mike has) and the latest slew of improvements has me wanting to take the dive more and more.
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