Hasta La Gadget!

Is there anything lasers can’t do? We only ask because they seem to be improving everything from microphones to railroads, and now researchers from Purdue University have leveraged the power of light to better manufacture solar cells. Using an ultrashort (as in quadrillionths of a second) pulse laser to more precisely scribe the microchannels connecting thin-film solar cells — as compared to current mechanical stylus methods — the Boilermakers were able to improve energy transfer efficiency between cells and significantly reduce manufacturing time. Having demonstrated the process works, research continues to better understand and prepare it for use by manufacturers — sooner rather than later, we hope.

Purdue researchers make solar cell manufacturing cheaper, more efficient with lasers originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Mar 2011 07:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wirelessly-powered TVs are nice, and transparent displays are cool and all, but what about an ambient light-powered transparent LCD? Well, that’s nothing short of awesome. Samsung showed off just such a device at CeBIT 2011 last week — a prototype 46-inch display with 1920 x 1080 resolution and ten-finger touchscreen capability. We aren’t sure what kind of black magic Sammy put in this thing, but it’s an incredible feat of engineering to make such a large display — and its accompanying solar cells — efficient enough to run exclusively off the juice it pulls from surrounding light sources. No word on how the photon-powered LCD compares to existing HD monitors in terms of brightness, refresh rates, or color reproduction, but a muted picture is a small price to pay for cutting the electrical cord forever.

Samsung demos ambient light-powered transparent LCD originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Mar 2011 12:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So, you’ve got your government-issued solar panels and you bought a plug-in EV, but being both a budget-minded and green-conscious geek, you’re concerned that your home’s power generation and consumption isn’t exactly optimal. Put your worries aside, because Sharp has created the Intelligent Power Conditioner (IPC) to max out the electrical efficiency of your abode while working in conjunction with public utilities. It operates by temporarily storing the unused solar-generated juice from the daytime — using both the system’s batteries and the cells in your shiny new EV — to deliver a steady stream of electrons at night. In tests with a Mitsubishi i-MiEV, the system was able to use the EV to supply 8kW of power to a home, and doled out enough electricity (4kWh) to recharge the car in a scant 30 minutes. The IPC is still in the development phase, but Sharp is looking to make it commercially available “in the near future” — which means the finishing touches on your ultimate eco-house will have to wait.

Sharp’s Intelligent Power Conditioner works with EVs to make your house a lean, mean, solar-powered machine originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Feb 2011 13:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Much like clockwork, Samsung’s memory labs are cranking out yet another innovation in the mobile DRAM sector, with the goal being to make the next (next) generation Galaxy Tab — and any other mobile device relying on Samsung memory — faster than ever. This go ’round, the crew has developed a 1Gb mobile DRAM module with a wide I/O interface for smartphones and tablets, enabling it to transmit data at 12.8GB/sec. For those keeping count, that’s an eightfold increase in bandwidth compared to LPDDR2 DRAM chips, and the company has also managed to trim power consumption by 87 percent all the while. In order to boost the data transfer rate, Samsung’s new wide I/O DRAM uses 512 pins for input and output, dwarfing the 32 pins used in the previous generation. Following this, Sammy’s hoping to provide 20nm-class 4Gb wide I/O mobile DRAM sometime in 2013, but we’re hoping to see this particular development sashay into tablets that hit the market long before then. Sadly, there’s no specific word on when, but you know we’ll be handing that information over just as soon as we get it.

Continue reading Samsung develops mobile DRAM capable of 12.8GB/sec data transfers, making all other memory jealous

Samsung develops mobile DRAM capable of 12.8GB/sec data transfers, making all other memory jealous originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Feb 2011 05:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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[photo from Flickr user jamescridland]

Solar cells aren’t cheap. The cost of turning the sun’s energy into usable electricity has been one of the main factors in keeping solar energy adoption rates down. However, a new method of producing cells developed by researchers at Stanford could lead to less costly and more efficient green energy production. Cells using quantum dots have been a subject of research for several years due to their potential for providing much more efficiency than traditional cells using materials like silicon. This is because regular cells can only capture a single part of the spectrum dependant on the material they are constructed from, whereas the very small dots on quantum dot cells can be adjusted in size to capture energy at different wavelengths. These types of cells are easier to make too, as the chemical reactions involved in their production are simpler than those used in building existing solar cells. Unfortunately, these solar panels have yet to live up to their high-efficiency promise, and researchers are working on ways to change that.

Stanford chemical engineering professor Stacey Bent, along with a team of researchers, found that, by adding a single layer of organic molecules less than a nanometer thick, the efficiency of these quantum dot cells can be tripled. The type of organic molecule used is not important, which surprised Bent.

“We thought it would be very sensitive to what we put down,” Bent said in this article on PhysOrg.com.

Right now, the team has only been able to achieve about 0.4 percent efficiency, which doesn’t compare favorably with the 31 percent efficiency of traditional cells. The group plans on adjusting elements of the cell to hopefully bring this number up in the future, challenging traditional solar cells with less costly, more efficient alternatives.

[via PhysOrg.com, ACS Nano]