High-quality mono-silicon crystal grown at low cost for solar cells

A joint research team in Japan has developed a “single-seed cast method,” a new casting method making it possible to grow high-quality mono silicon at low cost. New casting method may facilitate the return of a market-competitive solar cell industry.

New method for converting solar energy into electrical power using photo-bioelectrochemical cells

A new paradigm for the development of photo-bioelectrochemical cells has been developed.

Quantum physics meets genetic engineering

A team of researchers has used engineered viruses to provide quantum-based enhancement of energy transport. The work points the way toward inexpensive and efficient solar cells or light-driven catalysis.

Evaporation-powered motor and light

Scientists designed shape-changing composites that used evaporation to power locomotion and generate electricity.

‘Yolks’ and ‘shells’ improve rechargeable batteries

One big problem faced by electrodes in rechargeable batteries, as they go through repeated cycles of charging and discharging, is that they must expand and shrink during each cycle — sometimes doubling in volume, and then shrinking back. This can lead to repeated shedding and reformation of its “skin” layer that consumes lithium irreversibly, degrading the battery’s performance over time. Now researchers have found a novel way around that problem: creating an electrode made of nanoparticles with a solid shell, and a “yolk” inside that can change size again and again without affecting the shell.

Superflare: Sun could release flares 1000x greater than previously recorded

The Sun demonstrates the potential to superflare, new research into stellar flaring suggests. New research has found a stellar superflare on a star observed by NASA’s Kepler space telescope with wave patterns similar to those that have been observed in solar flares. Superflares are thousands of times more powerful than those ever recorded on the Sun, and are frequently observed on some stars.

Borrowing from whales to engineer a new fluid sensor

Researchers have borrowed from biological structures called tubercles that humpback whales use to maneuver in the ocean to make a piezoelectric energy harvester for use as an airflow or fluid speed and direction-sensing device.