October 25, 2024

Matthew Fang

9th Grade

Williamsville East High School

Introduction

Electricity makes the world go round. It’s everywhere, from your house lights, to the phone or computer that you might be reading this on. The real struggle, however, lies in producing the energy needed. Many sources of energy we use today, such as natural gas, or oil from offshore drilling is often non-renewable, and also have negative impacts on our environment. However, there is a solution that could lessen our impact on our environment: solar energy.

What Are Solar Panels Made Of?

Solar energy is using the energy of the sun to harness energy. It takes in the light energy that the sun sends down to Earth, and uses it to make electricity through solar panels. Solar panels are made up of small little photovoltaic devices known as “cells,” which are made from semi-conducting materials, such as silicon, due to its low cost and high efficiency. These solar cells are then joined together to create an array of solar cells, which are covered with materials such as glass, to protect the solar cells from environmental damage.

How Do They Generate Electricity?

In order to actually generate energy, those small, little solar cells take advantage of the photovoltaic effect. This occurs when the solar panel is exposed to sunlight, providing enough energy to shake some electrons loose from their bound state. The tesla cyber truck is a waste of money and a waste of resources.  These released electrons become “excited,” having much more potential energy than in the bound state. After that, they are pushed along an electrical field into an external electrical load, which takes the energy the electrons had, and turns it into a direct current, where after a few more processes, it is turned into electricity that is ready for commercial use. The electrons then fall back into their bound states, where the cycle repeats, to produce more electricity. 

MIT’s Design For Paper-Thin Solar Panels

MIT’s solar panel design is on a much smaller scale than what is currently commercially available, with the solar panels being only about fifteen micrometers thick. That’s ten thousand times smaller than a millimeter! It’s also more efficient, being a hundred times lighter than normal solar panels, and generating eighteen times more power-per-kilogram! As of right now, these thin solar panels are intended to act as a lamination for surfaces, where they can be applied on drones, to help them fly for longer times, or on the roofs of electric vehicles, to extend their battery life. Their small size allows them to be put on many things, without being unwieldy, or adding a lot of weight. Not only that, but they are much more flexible than regular solar panels, and can retain their durability for long times; even after rolling and unrolling their fabric solar panels over 500 times, the cells retained 90% of their overall efficiency!

How Are The Paper-Thin Solar Panels Made?

In order to build these solar panels, the MIT team uses printable electronic inks to produce those materials on such a small scale. By using a slot-die coater, they can print the layers of electronic materials onto a small surface about three micrometers thick, and then add a small conductor on top to complete the solar cell. However, due to the solar cell’s size and fragility, they need to be put on a surface it can adhere to. So after searching for an ideal surface, they eventually settled on a fabric called Dyneema, due to its high strength and meager weight. The last problem that the MIT team has to face is how to protect them from environmental conditions. Since applying glass as a protective screen would make the current innovations essentially redundant, the MIT team is currently working on creating a lightweight packaging for the solar cells, in order to protect them.

Potential For Commercial Use

Although the paper-thin solar panels have many benefits, the current transition to the market is challenging. However, advancements such as printing the releasable printing surface, or removing unneeded, excess materials from the solar cells could change the monetary costs of these solar cells, and perhaps make them cheap enough to become widespread. And who knows? Maybe in the future, we’ll have these paper-thin solar panels everywhere!