New research at University of Delaware on changing the color of light could lead to a breakthrough in solar technology.
While sunlight contains a wide spectrum of colors, a traditional solar cell can’t absorb low-energy colors, like red. Engineers at UD want to transform these low-energy colors into a high-energy color, like blue or green. That would let solar cells to absorb more light, thus giving humans access to more solar power.
It's technically impossible to turn red light into blue. But UD's scientists are developing tiny semiconductors that can combine two red lights into a blue light. Engineer Joshua Zide says their approach could potentially boost a cell's efficiency from 33 percent to 40 percent.
“And that doesn’t sound that big until you realize that the whole solar industry lives and dies on fractions of a percent. A 6 or 7 percent change could be pretty groundbreaking in solar," said Zide.
Engineers at UD also want to test how this technology can be used in medicine. For example, delivering cancer drugs to diseased tissue can be challenging because the drug has to be administered at precise times and locations in the body to be effective. Scientists want to build a nanoparticle that can release its drug contents when triggered by light. Then, doctors could gain better control of how that drug is delivered in the body and avoid harming healthy tissue.
The research is funded by a three-year $1 million dollar grant from the Keck Foundation.
