Oct 6, 2008
Oct 4, 2008
Mnemonic Card: research02
Better Plastic Solar Cells
Dye-sensitized solar cells, sometimes called Grätzel cells after their inventor, Michael Grätzel, a chemistry professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, in Switzerland, have long been considered a promising technology for reducing the cost of solar power. They're potentially cheaper to make than conventional solar cells and can be quickly printed. But this potential hasn't been realized because to achieve efficiency levels high enough to compete with conventional solar cells--about 10 percent--it's been necessary to use volatile electrolytes that need to be carefully sealed inside the cells, an expensive and unreliable step in the manufacturing.
Now Grätzel, along with Peng Wang, a professor at the Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, have made efficient solar cells that use nonvolatile electrolytes, with the best achieving efficiencies of 10 percent. They also showed that the solar cells remained stable when exposed to light and high temperatures for 1,000 hours. The advance "pushes the technology close to over the '10 percent hump,' which is where a thin-film technology needs to be to be economically competitive," says Tonio Buonassisi, a professor of mechanical engineering at MIT.
One of the electrolytes is something called an ionic fluid--a fluid largely made up of ions and often composed of salts that have low melting temperatures. An ionic fluid can be used with plastic electrodes, which would allow for solar cells that are both efficient and flexible, and therefore could be incorporated into clothing, awnings, and covers for cars. "We never dreamt that we could have efficiencies of 9 or 10 percent with ionic liquids," Grätzel says. "Ten years ago, we had 1 percent efficiency, and we never thought it would get any better."
The new solar cells were made possible by advances first published this summer. In that work, the researchers increased the conductivity of electrolytes based on ionic fluids and produced solar cells that were 8.2 percent efficient. In the current work, published last month in the Journal of Physical Chemistry, the researchers further increased the efficiency by pairing the ionic liquid electrolyte with a new dye, the part of the dye-sensitized solar cell that absorbs sunlight. The new dye absorbs light far better than the conventional dye. Because the dye absorbs light so well, it's possible to cut the thickness of the active material in the solar cell in half, which makes it easier for electrons to escape the solar cell and reach an external circuit. That, in turn, increases efficiency, in this case to 9.1 percent.
The researchers also paired the new dye with a nonvolatile solvent-based electrolyte. It's not quite as stable as an ionic liquid, and it can't be used with plastic. But it allowed slightly higher efficiencies--up to 10 percent.
Grätzel is working with two companies to commercialize this technology. One, G24 Innovations, based in Cardiff, U.K., is planning to sell dye-sensitized solar cells for applications such as recharging cell phones, especially in countries with unreliable electricity. Another company, Dyesol, based in Queanbeyan, Australia, is planning to sell solar cells that can double as the facades on buildings. Both companies have already developed dye-sensitized solar cells based on earlier technology, but the recent advances could make the cells cheaper and significantly improve performance.
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy
Ralink Demonstrates Industry Leading Green WiFi Solutions
Ralink Technology, a leading developer of 802.11x chips, announced today that it will be demonstrating its industry leading Wi-Fi solutions at CEATEC Japan. Located in 2A25 Ralink's booth will showcase the latest in 802.11n technology, featuring Ralink's Green technology initiatives.
"We are proud to present our latest single chip AP, router and client Wi-Fi solutions this year at CEATEC Japan," said Rick Jeng, President of Ralink, "these solutions not only provide industry leading performance and range, but also incorporate advanced green technology to reduce power consumption in the wide range of consumer and commercial electronics using Ralink's Wi-Fi. We are committed to providing our customers with environmentally friendly solutions, without compromising the end user's experience."
Ralink's Green technology initiatives are a culmination of techniques implemented in our chipsets to save energy. The new RT3071/RT3072 802.11n USB Client solutions incorporate Wi-Fi Adaptive Performance Technology. This technique allows Ralink Wi-Fi chipsets to adapt to the user's performance needs. During times of intense data transfers, the chipset will put itself into the full 1x2 or 2x2 MIMO configuration for maximum throughput.
Ralink's new RT3050/RT3052 Single Chip 802.11n Router solutions support Wi-Fi Multimedia Power Save, a technique by which data transactions are made at regularly scheduled intervals, instead of instantaneously. This technique allows for longer, regular Wi-Fi sleep periods which add up to greater power savings.
Ralink's PC and Notebook client devices such as the RT3090 supports Wake on Wireless LAN. This technology enables the PC or Notebook to go into a deep sleep mode to save power when there is no activity. A magic packet sent by a router or peer can be detected by the Ralink Wi-Fi chipset, which then sends a signal to "wake up" the rest of the PC.
http:// www.ralinktech.com/
Lithography Past Light's Limits A new optical etching technique could lead to faster microchips.
By Katherine Bourzac
The laws of physics dictate that traditional lenses can't focus light onto a spot narrower than half the wavelength of the light. But converting the light into waves called plasmons can get around this limitation. Plasmonic lithography, which uses plasmon-generated radiation to carve physical features into a substrate, promises to revolutionize optical storage and computing, enabling ultradense DVDs and powerful microprocessors. Now, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have surmounted the biggest obstacle to plasmonic lithography by building a prototype that brings a plasmonic lens very close to the substrate.
Plasmonic lithography is "a technology that bears looking at because we need better solutions for sub-20-nanometer lithography than we have today," says John Hartley, director of the Advanced Lithography Center at the University of Albany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering. In optical lithography, light shines through a mask--a type of stencil--onto a substrate, such as a silicon wafer, that's coated with a light-sensitive chemical called a photoresist. The photoresist hardens where the light strikes it; elsewhere, it can be rinsed away, reproducing the pattern of the mask. It's possible to make finer features by using shorter-wavelength light, but this approach quickly becomes impractical, says Zhang. Shorter-wavelength light has higher energy, and producing it requires expensive lasers or, in the case of extreme ultraviolet light, a synchrotron. Other technologies, such as electron beams, can etch very fine features without masks, but they're slow. The Berkeley flying lens is much faster and will become faster still, says Zhang, when the number of plasmonic lenses in an array is increased from the current 16 to 100,000. (The rest is omitted)
- http://twitter.com/techreview
Tiny Mobile Modem Phone
GauGau International Japan Co. Ltd. specializes in importing, developing and wholesaling a wide range of mobile phones, smart phones and related accessories, including portable and solar batteries.
Our corporate value lies in building trust with our overseas suppliers, which we believe is the key for successful cross-border trading. Should you have any questions about GauGau International Japan Co. Ltd.,
* Support Mobile phone, PDA, i-Pod, i-Phone, Digital Camera, MP3, MP4, PSP etc.
* Ultra-thin shape with ultra-light size
* Quality surface treatment guarantee comfortable touch feeling
* Ideal for long flights, outdoor activities, anytime and anywhere devices.
* LED capacity indicator to show current power capacity anytime
http://www.gaugau.co.jp
Dye-sensitized solar cells, sometimes called Grätzel cells after their inventor, Michael Grätzel, a chemistry professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, in Switzerland, have long been considered a promising technology for reducing the cost of solar power. They're potentially cheaper to make than conventional solar cells and can be quickly printed. But this potential hasn't been realized because to achieve efficiency levels high enough to compete with conventional solar cells--about 10 percent--it's been necessary to use volatile electrolytes that need to be carefully sealed inside the cells, an expensive and unreliable step in the manufacturing.
Now Grätzel, along with Peng Wang, a professor at the Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, have made efficient solar cells that use nonvolatile electrolytes, with the best achieving efficiencies of 10 percent. They also showed that the solar cells remained stable when exposed to light and high temperatures for 1,000 hours. The advance "pushes the technology close to over the '10 percent hump,' which is where a thin-film technology needs to be to be economically competitive," says Tonio Buonassisi, a professor of mechanical engineering at MIT.
One of the electrolytes is something called an ionic fluid--a fluid largely made up of ions and often composed of salts that have low melting temperatures. An ionic fluid can be used with plastic electrodes, which would allow for solar cells that are both efficient and flexible, and therefore could be incorporated into clothing, awnings, and covers for cars. "We never dreamt that we could have efficiencies of 9 or 10 percent with ionic liquids," Grätzel says. "Ten years ago, we had 1 percent efficiency, and we never thought it would get any better."
The new solar cells were made possible by advances first published this summer. In that work, the researchers increased the conductivity of electrolytes based on ionic fluids and produced solar cells that were 8.2 percent efficient. In the current work, published last month in the Journal of Physical Chemistry, the researchers further increased the efficiency by pairing the ionic liquid electrolyte with a new dye, the part of the dye-sensitized solar cell that absorbs sunlight. The new dye absorbs light far better than the conventional dye. Because the dye absorbs light so well, it's possible to cut the thickness of the active material in the solar cell in half, which makes it easier for electrons to escape the solar cell and reach an external circuit. That, in turn, increases efficiency, in this case to 9.1 percent.
The researchers also paired the new dye with a nonvolatile solvent-based electrolyte. It's not quite as stable as an ionic liquid, and it can't be used with plastic. But it allowed slightly higher efficiencies--up to 10 percent.
Grätzel is working with two companies to commercialize this technology. One, G24 Innovations, based in Cardiff, U.K., is planning to sell dye-sensitized solar cells for applications such as recharging cell phones, especially in countries with unreliable electricity. Another company, Dyesol, based in Queanbeyan, Australia, is planning to sell solar cells that can double as the facades on buildings. Both companies have already developed dye-sensitized solar cells based on earlier technology, but the recent advances could make the cells cheaper and significantly improve performance.
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy
Ralink Demonstrates Industry Leading Green WiFi Solutions
Ralink Technology, a leading developer of 802.11x chips, announced today that it will be demonstrating its industry leading Wi-Fi solutions at CEATEC Japan. Located in 2A25 Ralink's booth will showcase the latest in 802.11n technology, featuring Ralink's Green technology initiatives.
"We are proud to present our latest single chip AP, router and client Wi-Fi solutions this year at CEATEC Japan," said Rick Jeng, President of Ralink, "these solutions not only provide industry leading performance and range, but also incorporate advanced green technology to reduce power consumption in the wide range of consumer and commercial electronics using Ralink's Wi-Fi. We are committed to providing our customers with environmentally friendly solutions, without compromising the end user's experience."
Ralink's Green technology initiatives are a culmination of techniques implemented in our chipsets to save energy. The new RT3071/RT3072 802.11n USB Client solutions incorporate Wi-Fi Adaptive Performance Technology. This technique allows Ralink Wi-Fi chipsets to adapt to the user's performance needs. During times of intense data transfers, the chipset will put itself into the full 1x2 or 2x2 MIMO configuration for maximum throughput.
Ralink's new RT3050/RT3052 Single Chip 802.11n Router solutions support Wi-Fi Multimedia Power Save, a technique by which data transactions are made at regularly scheduled intervals, instead of instantaneously. This technique allows for longer, regular Wi-Fi sleep periods which add up to greater power savings.
Ralink's PC and Notebook client devices such as the RT3090 supports Wake on Wireless LAN. This technology enables the PC or Notebook to go into a deep sleep mode to save power when there is no activity. A magic packet sent by a router or peer can be detected by the Ralink Wi-Fi chipset, which then sends a signal to "wake up" the rest of the PC.
http:// www.ralinktech.com/
Lithography Past Light's Limits A new optical etching technique could lead to faster microchips.
By Katherine Bourzac
The laws of physics dictate that traditional lenses can't focus light onto a spot narrower than half the wavelength of the light. But converting the light into waves called plasmons can get around this limitation. Plasmonic lithography, which uses plasmon-generated radiation to carve physical features into a substrate, promises to revolutionize optical storage and computing, enabling ultradense DVDs and powerful microprocessors. Now, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have surmounted the biggest obstacle to plasmonic lithography by building a prototype that brings a plasmonic lens very close to the substrate.
Plasmonic lithography is "a technology that bears looking at because we need better solutions for sub-20-nanometer lithography than we have today," says John Hartley, director of the Advanced Lithography Center at the University of Albany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering. In optical lithography, light shines through a mask--a type of stencil--onto a substrate, such as a silicon wafer, that's coated with a light-sensitive chemical called a photoresist. The photoresist hardens where the light strikes it; elsewhere, it can be rinsed away, reproducing the pattern of the mask. It's possible to make finer features by using shorter-wavelength light, but this approach quickly becomes impractical, says Zhang. Shorter-wavelength light has higher energy, and producing it requires expensive lasers or, in the case of extreme ultraviolet light, a synchrotron. Other technologies, such as electron beams, can etch very fine features without masks, but they're slow. The Berkeley flying lens is much faster and will become faster still, says Zhang, when the number of plasmonic lenses in an array is increased from the current 16 to 100,000. (The rest is omitted)
- http://twitter.com/techreview
Tiny Mobile Modem Phone
GauGau International Japan Co. Ltd. specializes in importing, developing and wholesaling a wide range of mobile phones, smart phones and related accessories, including portable and solar batteries.Our corporate value lies in building trust with our overseas suppliers, which we believe is the key for successful cross-border trading. Should you have any questions about GauGau International Japan Co. Ltd.,
* Support Mobile phone, PDA, i-Pod, i-Phone, Digital Camera, MP3, MP4, PSP etc.
* Ultra-thin shape with ultra-light size
* Quality surface treatment guarantee comfortable touch feeling
* Ideal for long flights, outdoor activities, anytime and anywhere devices.
* LED capacity indicator to show current power capacity anytime
http://www.gaugau.co.jp
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