New technique developed at MIT could enable a major boost in
solar-cell efficiency.
Throughout decades of research on solar cells, one formula
has been considered an absolute limit to the efficiency of such devices in
converting sunlight into electricity: Called the Shockley-Queisser efficiency
limit, it posits that the ultimate conversion efficiency can never exceed 34
percent for a single optimized semiconductor junction.
Now, researchers at MIT have shown that there is a way to
blow past that limit as easily as today’s jet fighters zoom through the sound
barrier — which was also once seen as an ultimate limit.