In rooms littered with tubes and metal canisters, Valy Vardeny works with physics graduate students to discover a more efficient way to produce electricity from the sun using organic, carbon-based materials.
Vardeny, a distinguished physics professor, is heading the project to develop new versions of solar power to be used on windowpanes and the sides of buildings.
“Currently the highest efficiency rate for an inorganic solar cell is (around 30 percent); whereas, in organic solar cells, we are at about a 6 percent efficiency rate,” said Golda Hukic, a biology graduate student working on the project. “But we’re working on that.”
Inorganic, or non-carbon based solar cells, are more productive than organic solar cells, but are limited to location. Most are placed on the roofs of buildings.
“In inorganic solar cells, you must place them on a flat place, (which) is due to their inflexible nature, whereas organic solar cells are much more pliable-they’re practically plastic,” Hukic said.
Hukic said the new solar cells could be used on window panes, pitched roofs and building sides.
Vardeny said he believes the work is important because of implications for sustainability.
“With gas prices reaching $4, and soon they will be five?we need alternative energy sources for our future, and the sun is one of them,” Vardeny said.
Vardeny said that by using polymers and other carbon-based structures, the light from the sun is converted to energy.
“(The process) is similar to photosynthesis, but that is very inefficient, so we have outsmart(ed) nature to get a better product,” he said. “We use various blends of organic compounds to capture all spectrums of light and test their efficiency.”
Vardeny has been researching organic semi-conductors for 27 years. He said he first became interested through Alan Heeger’s work on the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Heeger is a world-renowned researcher of organic compounds.
“I ask(ed) for some samples and we eventually started to collaborate, (which was) a good choice as Heeger eventually won the Nobel Prize for his research,” he said. “From there I have progressed to organic semi-conductors.”
Yuan Fang, another physics graduate student working with Vardeny, said researchers working in the lab sometimes take weeks to plan for experiments.
“The first time we do things, it is often a waste of time, but you learn and the second time is more successful,” he said.
Vardeny has been working on this project for more than three years and said he feels their work has been successful so far.
Ben KuhnsGolda Hukic and Yuan Fang, grad students in physics, conduct experiments to find more efficient ways of producing electricity using the sun.