Sandia team shows off work in solar power

  • Published
  • By Ryan Stark
  • Nucleus writer
KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. --  Sandia National Laboratories recently gave a glimpse of future uses of solar power.

Vipin Gupta, co-lead of Sandia's Materials, Devices and Energy Technologies division, recently spoke at TEDx ABQ, the local incarnation of TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) Talks. The presentations -- which are delivered by experts from a variety of fields are designed to be short, entertaining and inspiring.

Gupta's team works in the area of microsystems-enabled photovoltaics. Simply put, the team works to make it possible for solar cells to be manufactured smaller, more cheaply and more efficiently. They also look for new applications for solar technology and with easier integration into existing power systems. For him and his team, the importance of the project is obvious.

"We receive this great gift of sunlight, yet almost all of humanity doesn't have the ability to unwrap it and use it to electrify the things that are important to us," Gupta said.

The Sandia team is attempting to making solar cells as small as 14 microns thick by 250 microns wide. By comparison, a human hair is around 100 microns thick. They are also looking to integrate semiconductors and LCDs into the cells.

The technology could find its way into everyday life in the form of ultra-thin sunlight concentrators on solar farms, solar cells in the windows of buildings or on car dashboards or even having solar cells embedded in clothing, Gupta said.

"While one can imagine how this technology can be used in these various ways, there's nothing more real than actually trying to do it," he said.

He added that the manufacturing capability already exists, which means the technology could come to the marketplace at a relatively low cost. He cited examples like semiconductors, flat-screen televisions and microprocessors.

"These industries know how to bring costs way down," Gupta said.

For more information on Sandia's microsystems-enabled photovoltaics project, go to www.mepv. sandia.gov.