Archive for the ‘News’ Category

by Alan Boyle, Science Editor NBC News The Swiss-made Solar Impulse plane landed in Dallas on Thursday, breaking the distance record for a solar-powered flight on the second leg of its coast-to-coast odyssey across America. The super-light, super-wide plane rose from its runway at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor

Qiaoqiang Gan, University at Buffalo assistant professor of electrical engineering, is developing a new generation of photovoltaic cells that produce more power and cost less to manufacture than what’s available today. One of his more promising efforts involves the use of plasmonic-enhanced organic photovoltaic materials. These devices

Homes and buildings chilled without air conditioners? Car interiors that don’t heat up in the summer sun? Tapping the frigid expanses of outer space to cool the planet? Yes. Stanford University researchers have designed an entirely new form of cooling structure that cools even when the sun

Georgia Institute of Technology and Purdue University researchers have developed efficient solar cells using natural substrates derived from plants such as trees. By fabricating them on cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) substrates, the solar cells can be quickly recycled in water at the end of their lifecycle. The technology

A single nanowire can concentrate sunlight up to 15 times the normal intensity, scientists from the Nano-Science Center at the Niels Bohr Institute, Denmark and the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne have shown. The nanowires concentrate the Sun’s rays into a very small area by up to