{"id":494,"date":"2016-04-04T15:29:18","date_gmt":"2016-04-04T19:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/?p=494"},"modified":"2016-04-02T17:41:22","modified_gmt":"2016-04-02T21:41:22","slug":"solar-cells-with-defects-may-surprisingly-increase-efficiency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/solar-cells-with-defects-may-surprisingly-increase-efficiency\/","title":{"rendered":"Solar cells with defects may (surprisingly) increase efficiency"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Surprising findings being tested<\/h2>\n<p>Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) are in the midst of testing unexpected theory &#8212; that defects in solar cells may actually improve performance.<\/p>\n<p>NREL scientists are using findings first published in <a href=\"http:\/\/scitation.aip.org\/content\/aip\/journal\/apl\/108\/2\/10.1063\/1.4939628\" title=\"this study\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>this study<\/strong><\/a> to determine the validity of these strange findings by performing advanced simulations using a supercomputer and resources at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC).<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">HPC helps <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NREL\">@NREL<\/a> scientists find that defects in silicon solar cells may improve performance: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/z3Mrh6gbc8\">https:\/\/t.co\/z3Mrh6gbc8<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/lVe0usM9Jk\">pic.twitter.com\/lVe0usM9Jk<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; NERSC (@NERSC) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NERSC\/status\/713804036739362816\">March 26, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Not all defects are equal<\/h3>\n<p>As it turns out, &#8220;deep-level defects&#8221; often do what would be expected &#8212; decrease the efficiency of solar cells. But through advanced testing, NREL scientists have already discovered that specific defects to solar cells can actually increase the efficiency of those solar cells.<\/p>\n<h3>Finding the &#8220;right&#8221; defect<\/h3>\n<p>Scientists are still working on determining which specific defects result in the most beneficial outcome from a power generation standpoint, so additional research is still needed.<\/p>\n<p>This research, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), will undoubtedly contribute to the ultimate goal of reaching record efficiency in silicon solar cells &#8212; a goal that many scientists and researchers are working toward.<\/p>\n<div id=\"inlink\"><a href=\"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/transparent-solar-cells-coming-soon\/\" title=\"Transparent solar cells, coming soon?\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/window-335607_1280-150x150.jpg\" title=\"Transparent solar cells, coming soon?\" alt=\"Transparent solar cells, coming soon?\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/transparent-solar-cells-coming-soon\/\" title=\"Transparent solar cells, coming soon?\"><h4>Transparent solar cells, coming soon?<\/h4><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/transparent-solar-cells-coming-soon\/\" title=\"Transparent solar cells, coming soon?\" class=\"hide375\">Read more<\/a><\/div>\n<span class=\"source-attribution\">Orginally published on &rarr; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.e-wisdom.com\/news\/solar-cell-defects-may-actually-improve-performace\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">E-Wisdom<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Through advanced testing, NREL scientists have already found that specific defects to solar cells can actually increase the efficiency of those solar cells.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":495,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[16,7,30],"class_list":["post-494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-solar","tag-solar-cells","tag-solar-panels","tag-technology"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":498,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions\/498"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}