Scientists at MIT have developed a new technique for creating solar cells. The process doesn’t require the high temperature and pressure treatment that regular cells require, bringing the cost down significantly. They have used a vapor deposition process which is similar to the process used to give the silver lining to the inside of a bag of potato chips, and were able to print an array of working photovoltaics to a sheet of untreated paper, plastic and even cloth.
This breakthrough technology cant be used to power too many things just yet as the cells work at only one percent efficiency. Despite this bottleneck, the cells provide many advantages over traditional silicone based photovoltaics, namely, they are flexible, in both physical terms as well as the materials used, and they are much much cheaper to manufacture. Don’t go looking for these on the market just yet though. They should be available in a couple of years.
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