New Material For More Efficient Solar Cells

There’s a new material that could create relatively cheap solar cells which are up to 50% efficient. This is much better than the 25% efficient silicon solar cells (most common) or the 36% efficient multi-junction solar cells (very expensive). The material was created by forcing oxygen into a zinc-manganese-tellurium crystal creating more band gaps, which allow the cell to create electrical energy with three seperate frequencies of light. This could lead to cheap, high-output solar cells in the future, but it will take at least three years to assess the feasibility of the new technology, according to the researchers