By Renewable Energy Focus Staff

Bandgap Engineering, a developer of silicon nanowire solutions, has secured two US patents for solar cells.

The first patent covers technology to improve the performance of solar cells by placing scattering centers in volume around the nanomaterial. The resulting composite absorbs more of the incident light for energy conversion.

Bandgap has also secured a patent to exploit nanowire/matrix interfaces and nano-engineer the band structure of silicon to optimise silicon for solar energy conversion.

Dr Marcie Black, Founder and CTO of Bandgap Engineering, says: “These latest patents demonstrate the effort Bandgap is making to advance nanowire technology for widespread commercial adoption. Both patents point the way to cost-effective advances in solar power efficiency. The Bandgap team is also developing corresponding designs, as well as fabrication and manufacturing techniques to reduce solar cell production cost.”