Scientists at Australia’s Queensland University of Technology have developed a quantum dot, titanium dioxide (TiO2) solar cell they claim offers better efficiency more cheaply than traditional crystalline silicon cells, as well as being more eco-friendly.
The researchers claim the cell boasts 24% efficiency, more than double the 8-11% lab-level performance observed in standard TiO2 quantum dot devices.
Some photons become trapped in the interface between nanocrystals in typical TiO2 quantum dot cells but the Queensland team claim to have removed the problematic interfaces.
“Our nanowire design eliminates the interface inside the TiO2 band, as it’s just a single layer of QD [quantum dot] -coated TiO2,” said research coordinator Ziqi Sun. “If we can remove this disordered interface, we can improve efficiency.”