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Black metal could give a heavy boost to solar power generation
University of Rochester researchers engineered a solar thermoelectric generator 15 times more efficient than current state-of-the-art devices.
“For decades, the research community has been focusing on improving the semiconductor materials used in STEGs and has made modest gains in overall efficiency,” says Chunlei Guo, a professor of optics and of physics and a senior scientist at Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics. First, on the hot side of the STEG, the researchers used a special black metal technology developed in Guo’s lab to transform regular tungsten to selectively absorb light at the solar wavelengths. Using powerful femtosecond laser pulses to etch metal surfaces with nanoscale structures, they enhanced the material’s energy absorption from sunlight, while also reducing heat dissipation at other wavelengths.
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