12 Year Old Boy Invents New Type of Solar Cell
Now here’s a story that makes me feel profoundly unaccomplished: a 12 year old boy in Beaverton, Oregon recently developed a new type of 3D solar cell that makes other solar cells look inefficient by comparison.
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William Yuan’s 3D cell can absorb both visible and UV light. According to his calculations, solar panels equipped with his 3D cells could provide 500 times more light absorption than current commercial solar cells and nine times more light than existing 3D solar cells.
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Yuan received a well-deserved $25,000 scholarship for his research. The next step? Getting his invention to market. Of course, the viability of his solar cells will ultimately depend on their cost efficiency—but Yuan has his whole life ahead of him to work on that.
You can check out the original press release here.
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I invented a new power source when I was 12… for my GI Joes.
Thank you for sharing this very interesting story. There is, however, a clarification that needs to be added.
The 3D solar cell was invented several years ago at the Georgia Tech Research Institute by our team of world-class scientists and engineers.
The Georgia Tech Research Institute (www.gtri.gatech.edu) has been making 3D solar cell prototypes of this design since 2004. You can read about the work in our April 2007 news release online at http://www.gtri.gatech.edu/casestudy/3d-solar-cells-boost-efficiency. Our work has patents pending in the US and abroad. We have also published our research widely in an number of highly regarded research journals including the Journal of Applied Physics, Journal of Materials and Carbon.
The 3D Solar Cell has the potential to be breakthrough in the solar industry. The global and exclusive license to the 3D Solar Cell intellectual property is held by IP2BIZ in Atlanta http://www.ip2biz.com/Offerings/ProofCoProjects.a... The license is currently for sale to any firm that can further develop, manufacture and bring it to market.
It is wonderful to see a student taking a real interest in science and math. We are also happy to hear of William’s interest in 3D solar cells. We encourage him to contact the Georgia Tech Research Institute so he may be connected with our lead researcher (Dr. Jud Ready), who would love for him to visit our laboratories to see how we create our photovoltaic cells. Who knows – maybe William can contribute to our groundbreaking work.
good luck w/ that, kid…..your dad help you w/ that?
Glad to see something awesome coming out of Beaverton, my home town.
Glad to see that the American Idol fiasco wasn’t the end of the line for him
That doesn’t make any sense. The best current solar cells are 40% efficient. 500 times that is 20,000% efficient.
Ariel,
I like your blog and your logo. Some of your articles are really good. However, as I see it, there really wasn’t any content to this post, nor did you provide any links to the story. Seems a little odd that it made it to the Digg front page. If you know some power user there, perhaps you could introduce him/her to our blog too. We’ve been putting together strings of great posts about solar legislation and new technology with a lot of graphics, sources, and irreverent humor.
http://www.solarpowerrocks.com
Cheers,
- Dan
Cheers,
- Dan
I thought of a similar idea, but with mirrors in it somewhere and still older than this guy. It’s good to see that’s there’s still some promise in the future.
Beaverton.. Home of Nike, you’ve had your time to shine, bud.
Dan,
Thanks for your comment. There is a link to the original article in the first sentence of the post. Additionally, this was never meant to be an in-depth exploration of the subject - just a fun little piece. We try to provide variety in subject and length, and honestly, I would have much preferred one of our lengthier posts (such as the one previous to this) to make it to the front page of digg.