Quad Master
Skilled
Imagine a world in which your shirt can recharge your cell phone, your camera can take pictures in the dark, and your rooftop shingles can power your home. This is the vision that Professor Ted Sargent and his team of researchers at the University of Toronto are hoping to turn into a reality.
In a paper published January 9 in Nature Materials, Sargent reports on his research in harnessing the invisible—or infrared—part of the sun's spectrum. What his group has done is pretty novel. By mixing lead sulfide (PbS) nanocrystals—a.k.a. "quantum dots"—with plastic (conjugated polymer) in a solvent, they've created a sprayable mixture that is sensitive to visible, and more importantly, infrared light.
In the past, this infrared sensitivity has been achieved using such expensive materials as indium phosphide (InP). But this is the first I've heard of anyone figuring out how to capture that part of the spectrum using a flexible and low cost plastic base.
[rank=www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1771450,00.asp]Full Article[/rank]
In a paper published January 9 in Nature Materials, Sargent reports on his research in harnessing the invisible—or infrared—part of the sun's spectrum. What his group has done is pretty novel. By mixing lead sulfide (PbS) nanocrystals—a.k.a. "quantum dots"—with plastic (conjugated polymer) in a solvent, they've created a sprayable mixture that is sensitive to visible, and more importantly, infrared light.
In the past, this infrared sensitivity has been achieved using such expensive materials as indium phosphide (InP). But this is the first I've heard of anyone figuring out how to capture that part of the spectrum using a flexible and low cost plastic base.
[rank=www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1771450,00.asp]Full Article[/rank]