Three scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory have developed a way to assess the quality of solar cells at a speed that is orders of magnitude faster than had been done before.
The instrument, Real-time QE, licensed and embellished by Tau Science Corp. as FlashQE™, uses light-emitting diodes, high-speed electronics and mathematical algorithms to measure the quantum efficiency of solar cells up to 1,000 times faster than had been done before.
Applying the brain’s parallel approach to the challenge ahead of them — gathering quantum efficiency data from solar cells with a spectrum of encoded LED light colors — proved to be the key. By arranging for each LED to blink at a different frequency, they could determine how each solar cell generated current in response to certain colors.
NREL’s LED light source also is a stand-alone invention that could be licensed by another company for probing things other than solar cells, ranging from counterfeit bills to skin cancer.
