With the overwhelming cost of solar photovoltaic cells being the primary limiting factor behind large-scale solar cell production researchers at the University of California Berkley’s Chemistry Department have developed a new form of solar cell that would both greatly reduce costs as well as help bring high-efficiency production into a viable commercial market – the nanowire solar cell. Utilizing an array of vertically aligned silicon nanowires the new solar cell would not only reduce the overall necessary thickness to 8% of conventional photovoltaic cells (down to a mere 8 micrometers from the previously required 100 micrometers) in order to reduce the overall necessary silicon required to manufacture the cell it also allows for impure or “dirty” silicon to be used in the manufacturing process, something conventional solar cells cannot do and is one of the primary factors in driving up the costs of most conventional solar energy.

In order to function the nanowire design utilizes a radial energy transfer concept where a p-type silicon nanowire is surrounded by n-type silicon, providing a much more energy efficient transfer over 360 degrees than the typical layered p/n-type designs where energy is gathered from the electron dispersal between the opposing poles of two layered films and energy can only be gathered effectively in one direction. This means that the nanowires have a much higher efficiency rate than other conventional methods and, because they do not require purified silicon in order to transfer energy through the separate layers, can be easily created with most silicon sources.

Another major advantage silicon nanowire cells have over other conventional solar energy cells is their production process. Being created in a lab using a chemical process rather than a machine-centered plant where expensive new machines are the only way to develop the cells the nanowire design is both scalable and able to be implemented into existing solar cell factories around the world. This means that the primary drawback from converting to a different design can be easily subverted and many companies can quickly shift over to a much more energy effective and cost saving form of solar energy production almost immediately.

Though it is true that the nanowire technique is only expected to have a 10% energy conversion efficiency, much lower than current high-efficiency solar cells, the overall reduction in costs is expected to make these forms of solar cells much more readily available to governments and companies alike looking to implement wide-scale solar energy collection developments.