Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Photovoltaics

More solar cells for less

Nature Materials volume 9, pages 183–184 (2010)Cite this article

Subjects

A solar-cell design based on silicon microwires achieves efficient absorption of sunlight while using only 1% of the active material used in conventional designs.

Supplying the world with energy in a sustainable manner is one of the most pressing issues in modern society. Converting the energy of sunlight into an easily usable form is one of the most attractive solutions because daily sunshine delivers energy to the Earth that is 10,000 times larger than present world energy consumption. Photovoltaic devices, which convert light into electricity, are therefore widely studied as a means to harvest solar energy. Although the photovoltaic industry has indeed seen a large growth rate in the past couple of decades, the energy produced by solar cells contributes to less than 0.1% of the world total energy consumption1. One of the main reasons for this is that solar electricity is still significantly more expensive than electricity generated traditionally by the burning of fossil fuels.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Solar-cell light management.

References

  1. Quantifying Energy: BP Statistical Review of World Energy (BP, 2006); available at <http://go.nature.com/GpZFQd>.

  2. Kelzenberg, M. D. et al. Nature Mater. 9, 239–244 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Nelson, J. The Physics of Solar Cells (Imperial College Press, 2003).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  4. Morales, A. M. & Lieber, C. M. Science 279, 208–211 (1998).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Tian, B. et al. Nature 449, 885–889 (2007).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Garnett, E. & Yang, P. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 130, 9224–9225 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Fan, Z. et al. Nature Mater. 8, 648–653 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Zhu, J. et al. Nano Lett. 9, 279–282 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Zhu, J., Hsu, C.-M., Yu, Z., Fan, S. & Cui, Y. Nano Lett. 10.1021/nl9034237 (2010).

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jia Zhu is in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA,

    Jia Zhu

  2. Yi Cui is in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.,

    Yi Cui

Authors
  1. Jia Zhu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Yi Cui
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yi Cui.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Zhu, J., Cui, Y. More solar cells for less. Nature Mater 9, 183–184 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2701

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2701

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing