The bonus is, the material is so light and thin you wouldn’t really expect its complexity! Engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have created ultralight fabric solar cells that can quickly turn any surface into a power source.
The team, led by Vladimir Bulović, the leader of the Organic and Nanostructured Electronics Laboratory (ONE Lab), and director of MIT.nano, published their results in Small Methods. Bulovic was joined by Mayuran Saravanapavanantham, an electrical engineering, and computer science graduate student at MIT; and Jeremiah Mwaura, a research scientist in the MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics.
The new cells are durable and flexible. They are also thinner than a human hair. They are easy to use, as they are glued to a lightweight fabric that allows installation on a fixed surface. They can generate 18 times more power per kilogram than conventional heavy solar panels.
Created from semiconducting inks, what makes these power cells unique, aside from their thinness, is that you can integrate them to any surface, and they will be able to provide power. The material can be attached to the sails of the boat, tents, tarps, and even drones. “The lightweight solar fabrics enable integrability, providing impetus for the current work. We strive to accelerate solar adoption, given the present urgent need to deploy new carbon-free sources of energy,” Bulović said.
Image credit: Melanie Gonick, MIT