|
Ubiquitous Energy, Inc. is an American solar energy startup company headquartered in Redwood City, California that designs transparent solar technology to absorb ultraviolet and near infrared light (NIR) (wavelength span of λ= 650– 850 nm) while transmitting visible light through its medium called ClearView Power TM. Ubiquitous Energy is a privately funded company founded in 2011 by Miles Barr, Vladimir Bulović, and Richard Lunt. Current solar power is created in solar plants that take up lots of surface area far away from where the energy is consumed. It is estimated 15% of the energy is lost during distribution.〔 Ubiquitous Energy's technology allows large cities to be solar plants themselves by converting the windows on buildings into solar energy generators. Ubiquitous Energy is implementing its ClearView Power TM technology into a wide range of products as an invisible, onboard source of electricity. Some examples of these implementations include mobile devices, windows, an digital signage. ==Technology== Previously, transparent solar technology was made by trying to shrink the components of the solar cell itself or segmenting inorganic solar cells across the module area, but this comes with limitations and doesn't achieve true transparency.〔 Rather, Ubiquitous Energy focuses on organic solar cells and which light is being absorbed. Developed from research done at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) they have developed organic photoactive Utilizing advancements in nano-structured photovoltaic (nano-PVs) device architecture has lead to the improvement in power conversion efficiency (PCE) needed to make transparent solar cost effective. The nano-PV solar cell class includes a variety of solar cells including molecular, organic, polymeric, dye-sensitized, and colloidal quantum dot (CQD) PVs.〔 As light passes throughout the transparent solar cell NIR is absorbed, then with the incorporation of NIR reflecting mirrors, there is better PCE and optimization of performance. The OPVs are made on glass, pre-coated with 150 nm thick idium-tin oxide (ITO). Then 20 nm Molybdenum trioxide (MoO3), 15 nm chloroaluminum phthalocyanine (ClAlPc), 30 nm Buckminsterfullerene (C60), 7.5 nm bathocuproine (BCP), and 100 nm thick Ag cathode are added through thermal evaporation.〔〔 This combination of layers allows for better absorption of different types of light that are otherwise not being used. As light passes throughout the transparent solar cell the NIR is absorbed, then with the incorporation of NIR reflecting mirrors, a higher PCE is achieved optimizing performance.〔 To produce, and carry the electricity, out of the cell, a typical transparent photovoltaic device will have UV and NIR active layers that, when exposed to sunlight, interact with each other to create and electric field causing an electrical current to flow. The UV and NIR active layers are then sandwiched by layers of electrodes that are connected to an external circuit which carries the current out of the device.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ubiquitous Energy」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|