Another day, another breakthrough announcement from IBM. This time the tech giant is giving a hand to clean energy with a high-efficiency solar cell made from Earth-abundant materials. Created from copper, tin, zinc, sulfur, and selenium, it performs at a 9.6 percent efficiency, which is 40 percent higher than previous attempts to create a natural solar cell. While there have been other solar cells that perform at similar efficiency rates, they’re created from materials that have either been too costly or that contain elements that could limit production capacity, making commercialization less likely.
For the full treatment, hunt down a copy of this week’s Advanced Materials, where IBM researchers describe the achievement. IBM won’t be going into the solar manufacturing business now, but will license intellectual property related to the research.
Update: For more information on this announcement, go to IBM’s Smarter Planet blog post.
