7th-Grader Designs Three Dimensional Solar Cell 719
Hugh Pickens writes "12-year-old William Yuan's invention of a highly-efficient, three-dimensional nanotube solar cell for visible and ultraviolet light has won him an award and a $25,000 scholarship from the Davidson Institute for Talent Development. 'Current solar cells are flat and can only absorb visible light'" Yuan said. 'I came up with an innovative solar cell that absorbs both visible and UV light. My project focused on finding the optimum solar cell to further increase the light absorption and efficiency and design a nanotube for light-electricity conversion efficiency.' Solar panels with his 3D cells would provide 500 times more light absorption than commercially-available solar cells and nine times more than cutting-edge 3D solar cells. 'My next step is to talk to manufacturers to see if they will build a working prototype,' Yuan said. "If the design works in a real test stage, I want to find a company to manufacture and market it.""
How? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How? (Score:5, Informative)
Makes me feel stupid for spending my childhood throwing rocks at cats.
Re:How? (Score:5, Funny)
Makes me feel stupid for spending my childhood throwing rocks at cats.
Don't feel bad; you make me feel stupid for spending my childhood throwing cats at rocks. Your way works a lot better.
Re:How? (Score:5, Funny)
Makes me feel stupid for spending my childhood throwing rocks at cats.
Don't feel bad; you make me feel stupid for spending my childhood throwing cats at rocks. Your way works a lot better.
The key is large rocks and properly accelerating the cats.
Or a very big rock (Score:5, Insightful)
The key is large rocks and properly accelerating the cats.
If you pick a big enough rock, the problem of accelerating the cat takes care of itself. :)
Re:How? (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, but would you have learned as much biology the other way? There are many people who owe their careers in medicine to their sociopathic tendencies in their youths.
Re:How? (Score:5, Funny)
Aah, little did young William know how much success he would have later in life with a career that started with a magnifying glass and an ant hill...
Re:How? (Score:5, Insightful)
Insightful is the new funny?
Re:How? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How? (Score:5, Funny)
Don't feel bad; you make me feel stupid for spending my childhood throwing cats at rocks. Your way works a lot better.
You may want to try throwing birds at stones instead.
It helps you build character.
- Chuck Norris.
Re:How? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How? (Score:5, Funny)
>> Makes me feel stupid for spending my childhood throwing rocks at cats.
The NEA called. They want to fund your performance art.
Re:How? (Score:5, Funny)
PETA called they have a cease and desist order to stop the performance art.
Re:How? (Score:5, Funny)
The FBI called. Their future-serial-killer profiling software identified you as a potential threat. Tom Cruise will be breaking through the sun-roof in a minute or two.
Re:How? (Score:5, Funny)
The phone company called, they want to upsell you on international long distance.
Or... something?
Re:How? (Score:5, Funny)
Mod parent up
mod that kid's parents up
Re:How? (Score:5, Funny)
In all seriousness, I hope this somehow makes it to production, what a bad ass.
Re:How? (Score:5, Informative)
That's what you think. Last year some 8 year olds invented wedgie-proof underwear [msn.com].
Re:How? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:How? (Score:5, Informative)
Swirly in a urinal? You're doing it wrong.
Re:How? (Score:4, Informative)
In skimming TFA I didn't see anything about the kid's patent.
His parents [oregonlive.com] are engineers at Intel. Besides them he has other engineers and professors who mentor him.
Falcon
Re:How? (Score:5, Funny)
Is anybody else feeling really inadequate right now?
I don't believe the size of the boy's penis was mentioned at all...
Re:How? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How? (Score:5, Funny)
The boy is 12 years old. Don't you think he's a little old for Pokemon?
Re:How? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm 23 and play Pokemon you insensitive clod.
Re:How? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm 23 and play Pokemon you insensitive clod.
That's why he designs 3D solar cells, and you don't
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:He would be a lot more interesting (Score:5, Funny)
if he could hammer an 8" spike through a board. Then he would have GF galore.
Not sure what that means, but I guarantee you that won't get you the kind of quantity and quality of cootch that millions of dollars of play money can. If that kid plays his cards right he could have said millions and will be drowning in top shelf snatch.
Well he is 12, so that would be illegal. I feel compelled to stand in on his behalf. This one time I will "take one for the team".
Re:How? (Score:5, Funny)
Is anybody else feeling really inadequate right now?
Not at all. I'll go home, have a beer while watching pr0n and wait for my new 3D nano solar cell to arrive.
His fear will be that he's peaked at 12. Aim low, and you'll always be moving up.
And yes, I do realize this could be construed as passive aggressive.
Re:How? (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds passive depressive to me ... ;-)
There is a downside to peaking early (Score:5, Interesting)
The asian kids were the worst too. My asian high school co-valedictorian had to (I kid you not) be institutionalized after his first semester. His first week of college, his roommate physically kicked him out of his room because his intensity was too much to handle (he was the kind of guy who would snap your head off if you even spoke to him while he was studying). Then, shortly thereafter, he swung wildly in the other direction and became a full-blown alcoholic (not going to class at all).
Re:There is a downside to peaking early (Score:4, Insightful)
When I was in college, the kids who were the over-achievers in high school were always the first to crash and burn when they hit college. Without their parents to drive them, they went nuts (sometimes literally). Didn't happen to all of them, but it was a lot more common with them than with the rest of us. Probably about half of the Governor's Scholars and Presidential Scholars I knew failed out their freshmen year.
Check back 5 years later when they've matured just a little. Some of those kids will have recovered and gone back to college. They may not have persued the same degree but I bet you'll find a lot of them have adjusted after the massive culture shock that no longer being spoon fed constitutes. Others of course will not have had the tenacity for a comeback, but I think the numbers that did will surprise you.
That's just one reason it's important not to write someone off if they don't succeed immediately.
Re:There is a downside to peaking early (Score:4, Informative)
Here is comes, the excuse one why the smart innovative kids aren't really all that so somebody can feel better about themselves
Can I believe it having gone to a shiny magnet (US world news #20) high school and then honor's program deal? The overachievers aren't any different from anyone else, often just more neurotic. Some really are brilliant and some are overcompensating idiots.
I disagree with the parent that:
Without their parents to drive them, they went nuts (sometimes literally).
because for me (and plenty of others) we're motivated enough that parental interference does more harm than good. Most of the kid's I know have very hands off parents (hell, a few have parent's who weren't even in the city/state/country) and it doesn't matter. I'm burned out, but I take on the type of killer workload that would burn out anyone. My friends who are saner are doing just fine.
I think William Yuan's work is awesome and hope he lands in schools/programs that can push him further, but he seems like the type of kid who'll do okay where ever so long as he stays on track (which really doesn't have anything to with brains far as I've seen.) This kid's got killer potential.
Re:There is a downside to peaking early (Score:5, Funny)
naturally curious
Check!
and socially well-adjusted
Fail. :(
Re:How? (Score:4, Funny)
I haven't peaked. I haven't even begun to peak. And when I do peak, you're going to know it because I'm going to peak all over everybody.
Re:How? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you think that's bad you should check out the $50 k scholarship recipients ...
How much college does that cover these days, a little over a semester?
Re:How? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not good advice. This is the advice I was given (well, not the "leftover money" bit--who has leftover money in college?), and compared to my friends who didn't take it and went to expensive schools, things have been a lot harder for me.
I teach university now, and let me tell you, after many years of being in college and several years on a faculty, how college works:
The point is not the classes per se. It is very true that, education-wise, just about any decent school is going to be the same there. Learning (and I say this as a teacher) is a lot more about what you do than it is about what the teacher does. About all I can do as a teacher is hone, year after year, my tricks for explaining things. But these tricks come up like once or twice a semester. I can also do my best to choose materials that are going to give you the opportunity to learn. That's the trick of course design (and to be honest, I'm not very good at it--I let the people who are design my syllabi and just make tweaks for personal preference--mine or the students). If the point of college was to learn, the mystique of places like Harvard or Oxford or whatever would have gone away long ago.
No, here's the real point of university: networking. And brand recognition.
I had a friend who went to Harvard. His classes did not seem any different or better than mine at a cheap state university (Go Rams!). However, that guy walked out of Harvard into a job at MSNBC. I walked out and... Couldn't find a job for a few months... Then got a short-term job... Then crashed... Then had to go to grad school so I could get a job... Then got a short-term uni job... And now I'm getting another.
Could I have done his job? Yeah, of course. But what got him there was the name value of Harvard and the contacts the school has. That, my friends, is worth the money.
See, I believe that the "if you go to college, you'll get a better job" thing is a total anachronism. Back in the old days, only the super-wealthy or super-smart could go. So if you were a middle-class or poor kid who proved himself and got in with all these rich contacts, of course you got a good job. You were Dickie Jr.'s roommate from college. Dickie spent the rest of his life sportfishing and snorting cocaine off of debutantes, but you got a well-paying and interesting lifelong job.
This isn't the case when everyone goes, or if you go to a cheaper/smaller/less-famous place. You don't meet Dickie Jr.; you meet Dirk, the kid from Grand Island, NE, who likes Purple Passion and Lynyrd Skynyrd. You don't have a contact with the owner of National Widget; you have a contact with the owner of Dirk Sr.'s feedlot.
I got a great education, no doubt about that. But the contacts have been very hard to build from scratch. People can cry "cronyism," but let's be honest: if you were looking for a person with X skillset, and your son was close with someone who had that skillset, would you take a chance on a stranger or take the guy or girl you know? Most people want a safe bet more than anything, so they go with the safe choice: a known value.
Now, I'm not even saying it has to be one of these A-list schools, necessarily, but you need to make sure that the department you are getting into is well-respected. My big, cheap state university is well-respected and well-connected in a number of fields. But I wasn't in them.
This is what high schoolers should be told. Go for the most famous school you can get into, even if you have to go into major debt. You will probably go into debt regardless, at least if you go somewhere expensive you'll have a job to pay that debt off.
If you're reading this and you're in a relatively unknown school: You can still build a network, but you're going to have to do it by hand. Get out there and start doing those damn internships, unpaid or not. I didn't understand why I should go to work for no money, especially when my grades were so good
Re:How? (Score:5, Informative)
You don't need an A-list school to build up your networking contacts. Internships, co-ops, clubs, and conferences are your best tools for networking. You're going to make a lot more networking contacts if you are on the solar car team at the University of Alabama than if you just go to class and don't do any extracurricular work at Cal Tech.
No high schoolers need to be told get involved in something no matter what school you go to. You'll make more and more meaningful contacts if you get involved in a project, research, or something outside of the classroom no matter what school you go to.
The question I would ask you, is what did you do besides go to class while you were in school? Did you apply for internships, or more importantly co-ops? Did you search for opportunities that let you network?
If you go to a decent state school you should have a number of opportunities for real world and academic networking. Early on in school spent my free time volunteering on projects doing whatever worthless junk I could - cataloging and archiving satellite photos from a NASA mission was a long, boring job that requires no skill or education. A friend of mine got his start helping sort parts for a robotics project and carrying junk across campus. What mattered was literally being in the room with the people I needed to network with. Eventually as my education built up to match my interests, I had the inside track to work on funded projects that sent me to various conferences and got my name out. When it came time, I didn't have to use my network to find a job, there were already people who were just waiting for me to graduate.
Alternatively as another poster said, go to a high class graduate school. Where you go to for undergraduate work isn't as important as where you go for grad school, simply because grad school is more about doing research and getting funded than learning the basics.
Overactive superego (Score:5, Insightful)
Is anybody else feeling really inadequate right now?
It is nothing but our own pride that insists that we are either the best in the world, or completely worthless.
There is a huge sliding grayscale of worthiness in the intellectual/industriousness domain.
The world needs a rich supply of people spread across that middle range.
In fact...the world needs the middlers more than it needs the geniuses. Given enough time the middlers can eventually get there on their own; the geniuses just accelerate the process a bit.
Once in a while a genius will do something that no number of middlers could ever have accomplished...which is nice...but once the genius has done it, the rest of us can follow suit. So, while we may need the occasional genius, we really don't need very many of them...whereas large numbers of middlers are the foundation of stable technological progress.
Drop the superego. Learn the value of who you already are, and be proud of it.
Re:Overactive superego (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed, and the proof is throughout history, the "middlers" are usually the ones that piece the genius together into workable solutions. Genius usually doesn't have the patience to see it through.
Re:Overactive superego (Score:5, Funny)
Genius usually doesn't have the patience to see it through.
I knew I was a genius! I have virtually no patience and hardly ever finish... ooh.. shiny objects in the big blue room!
Re:Overactive superego (Score:5, Funny)
But... the superego is the only thing between acting civilized and being a slave to my id. What you propose would lead to a world of people living only to sate the basest of desires. Kind of like Los Angeles.
Re:Overactive superego (Score:4, Interesting)
It is nothing but our own pride that insists that we are either the best in the world, or completely worthless.
There is a huge sliding grayscale of worthiness in the intellectual/industriousness domain.
The world needs a rich supply of people spread across that middle range.
Learn the value of who you already are, and be proud of it.
You remind me of the book "Brave New World" where they learned to genetically engineer geniuses on a mass scale but went back to creating middle and lower classes because the geniuses wouldn't to manual labor jobs.
In other words, the world needs ditch diggers.
Re:Overactive superego (Score:4, Interesting)
Which is stupid, becasue even a genius will dig a ditch to survive. If you have an abundance of Geniuses, then they will do what the need to and make a buck. They may design a better way to do it, but it will get done none the less.
Re:Overactive superego (Score:4, Interesting)
That's total crap. If the world were made up entirely of geniuses, they would invent robots to do all the ditch digging for them.
100 years ago, something like 30% of the population were farmers. Now, it's more like 3%. Technology has increased productivity and allowed people to spend their time in other endeavors, like inventing the automated production line so that workers could move from assembly line to being engineers.
It's not until the engineers/scientists invent a computer so smart [wikipedia.org] it can do our thinking for us that we have to worry. :)
Story of the USA education, in a nutshell (Score:5, Interesting)
It sounds like what got you the problem that almost nobody wants to learn in school any more, eh? Learn the value of being a prom queen who'll either marry a millionaire (stiff competition there, though) or be a waitress for the rest of your days, and be proud of that. Or learn to be value of being the jock who _might_ one day get lucky and get into a minor league sports team, but most likely will operate a gas pump or maybe unload crates at Wall-Mart.
Let's face it, in life you'll almost invariably hit lower than you aim. If you already aim low, you'll hit even lower. Starting from being nothing(*) and being proud and content with what you _already_ are (my emphasis) is a recipe for failure.
(*) and being mommy and daddy's "special" darling doesn't count there. If that's all you are and aim no higher, you'll eventually grow out of that and with _nothing_.
As for the middlers, I'll call bullshit on that feel-good fairy-tale. Historically the "middlers" were the guys ploughing the field and being plundered by both armies in a war. From the Roman Kingdom (yes, they were that before being a Republic, which they were before becoming an Empire) to some time during the 19'th century, that's what some 80% of the population was doing: the mind-numbingly boring task of walking behind a plough behind an ox or horse, holding onto the handles. Dawn to dusk. That's how the acre was even defined: how much a peasant can plough from dawn to dusk.
Add some miners, craftsmen, mercenaries and the like, and that accounts for even more people.
To even have the chance to be the guy who tinkers with a genius's ideas until they work, you had to be one of the most privileged 5% or less. The middlers were at best those guys kneading hides in dog shit (yes, that's how tanning worked) for the leather straps your invention needed. Or while those top few percent were busy inventing a better gun, the middlers were fermenting shit with piss to make saltpetre for that gun. Or while those top few were figuring out how to make a gothic cathedral (no mean feat, given the lack of even a mathematical notation you'd use these days), the middlers were hauling square slabs of rock for it. Stable contribution to technological progress of that middler gang: zero point zero.
Valuable contributions, nevertheless, but spare me the bullshit self-fellatio that such middlers were what caused stable technological progress.
Now I'm not saying you should go depressed about your skills or anything. But do aim higher, or you'll never improve. And spare us and yourself the bullshit story in which it's perfectly ok to be an underachiever and proud of it, and how such underachieving middlers had jack shit to do with technological progress.
Re:How? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really. Probably, his father is a research scientist in the field.
There was an article in the LA Times about how parents were using their contacts with research labs to get resources for their kids science fair project competitions - parents would do things like (a hypothetical example) getting a time-slot allocated on a supercomputer to run CFD simulations to design a turbine to capture energy from water running down a drain-pipe. Organisers of such events eventually made the restriction on the types of resources that could be used.
Re:How? (Score:5, Funny)
Gooder is not a word. I think you meant betterer.
Re:How? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How? (Score:5, Funny)
Yea for submarine patents.
If you really did dig up the papers, and could date them, and this kid actually is using the same design as you, and it actually works in the real world, you can patent the idea and make a ton of money.
It'd be like taking candy from a baby...
Re:How? (Score:5, Informative)
From the synopsis on the Davidson Institute [davidsongifted.org] website, it sounds like he simulated the design with computer models but did not actually build it.
Re:How? (Score:5, Interesting)
By asking and actually putting forth effort to find the resources to work on it.
I learned electronics at the age of 8 by running around and digging in trash to find dead radios and other things for parts. I saved up the cash to buy the tools I needed (I used a wood burner for the first year as a soldering iron and plumbers solder)
If you're not lazy and actually search for this stuff you can get it, most resources you need are all around you. A buddy of mine made an electric go kart one summer from old water pipe and car parts we found around town and we taught ourselves to stick weld by using a old lincoln stick welder his grandpa had and we picked up the last 4 inches of welding sticks at the local body shop and construction sites.
Re:How? (Score:5, Insightful)
nope cant blame gaming. I wasted a lot of hours on my Atari but I also designed and built things.
The difference between a dreamer and a engineer is that the dreamer draws things in class. The engineer draws things in class and builds them.
I had a jr high teacher tell my dad I was a failure because I drew nonsense in his classes. My dad looked at the drawings he took from me and said.." that failure designed and built that doodle in my garage. he learned how to bend steel and weld a sidecar frame and attached it to his dirtbike all on his own."
Note: sidecar on dirtbike while a neat concept is actually a BAD idea. I still feel the pain in my legs from that one.
i entered science fair in 7th grade (Score:5, Insightful)
i lost to a chick who was performing live open heart surgery on rats
i didn't feel inadequate: my parents weren't high ranking research scientists who could get the authorization to let their children have the run of the university research facilities on weekends
and who i knows how much else her parents guided her through
its far more impressive to build an aerodynamic soap box derby car out of balsa wood than it is to turn the ignition on your dad's cessna
well, in terms of personal achievement that is
i'm not saying i'd rather play with balsa wood than a cessna ;-)
Not to knock the kid, but (Score:4, Insightful)
How do people that young get access to tools to build these things?
At this point (according to one of TFAs, the other is slashdotted) it looks like he hasn't built anything. He's only done some modeling. Now he's looking for somebody to build a prototype and see if the real world behaves like the model.
And if it doesn't it's not his fault - it's the tool's.
So your question should be "How do people that young get access to tools to model these things?"
Answer: Good schools, good teachers, and maybe a corporate grant program.
Any bets on whether Meadow Park Middle School is a government-run public school?
Re:How? (Score:5, Informative)
I suppose his dad plays his chess matches and practices his Taekwondo for him too? [ditd.org] He sounds like a genuinely extremely talented kid:
Honors/Awards
* 2008 Davidson Fellow
* 2008 Northwest Science Expo, Second Place
* 2008 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Best Engineering Project
* 2008 Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth Talent Search, First Place in Oregon
State (Verbal)
* 2008 Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth Talent Search, First Place in Oregon
State (Quantitative)
* 2008 High Tech Kids First Lego League First Lego League (FLL) International Open
(team), Second Place Champion\u2019s Award
* 2008 Oregon Chess for Success State Tournament, Team Championship, First Place
* 2008 Oregon Chess for Success State Tournament, Second Place
* 2007 Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth Talent Search, First Place in Oregon
State
* 2007 Intel Oregon FLL Champion\u2019s Award (team), First Place
* 2007 Oregon Chess for Success State Tournament, Team Championship, First Place
* 2007 Oregon Chess for Success State Tournament, Second Place
* 2007 World Taekwondo Headquarters: Poom Certificate
* 2006 Intel Oregon FLL State Tournament Young Team, First Place
* 2006 Oregon Chess for Success State Tournament, Team Championship, First Place
* 2005 Intel Oregon FLL Regional Tournament (team), First Place Award
* 2005 Oregon Chess for Success State Tournament (team), Second Place
Re:How? (Score:5, Funny)
Her family has decided to pray she one day grows big boobs, or she may never leave home. That our bloodline shares this DNA is soooooo depressing.
Re:How? (Score:5, Funny)
Is the point of the big boobs to work sort of like air bags in case she trips again?
Re:How? (Score:4, Funny)
only boobs will keep this girl off government assistance.
so, what now only boobs vote for small government?
Re:How? (Score:5, Funny)
I think the kid has a promising future as a chessboxer.
Re:How? (Score:4, Funny)
I think the kid has a promising future as a chessboxer.
Chessdome!! Two kings enter, one king leaves!
Re:How? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:How? (Score:5, Informative)
Slashdotted and no comments.... (Score:4, Interesting)
text of the slashdotted article (Score:5, Informative)
William Yuan's bright idea to create a new, more efficient solar cell earned him top honors as Oregon's only 2008 Davidson Fellow.
As part of the honor, the 12-year-old Bethany boy will be flown to Washington, D.C., for a reception Sept. 24 at the Library of Congress where he will receive his award and a $25,000 scholarship from the Davidson Institute for Talent Development.
"William's work was evaluated by university professors and environmental scientists," said Tacie Moessner, Davidson Fellows program manager in a call from Reno, Nev. "They look for the project's potential to benefit society and make sure it is socially relevant. Generally, the projects need to be at the graduate level."
Yuan worked on his project for the past two years with the encouragement of his science teacher Susan Duncan; support of his parents Gang Yuan and Zhiming Mei; and counsel of professional mentors Professor Chunfei Li of Portland State University's Center for Nanofabrication and Electron Microscopy, Fred Li of Applied Materials Inc. and Professor Shaofan Li of the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of California - Berkeley.
"He is our youngest fellow in science that we've ever had," Moessner said. "He is really spectacular.
"His project will really make a difference in advancing the technology of solar cells. You would never know he's 12 looking at the quality of his work."
Young talent
William Yuan is a seventh-grader in Meadow Park Middle School's Summa options program.
He is an active member of the school's Math Engineering Science Achievement (MESA) Club, First Lego League team and participant in the Science Bowl and MathCounts programs. He is also a two-time, second-place chess champion for the state.
Recognizing his interest in science, math and engineering, Yuan's science teacher encouraged him to tackle a challenging engineering project for the Northwest Science Expo after introducing him to nanotechnology and renewable energy research.
"We learned about some great energy and environmental issues," Yuan said. "To try to help, I researched the application of nanotechnology and renewable energy.
"I felt they would best complement my background knowledge and experience. After extensive research and community outreach, I wanted to work on a project to find a solution for some of the problems of the world."
Yuan decided to focus his project on finding the most efficient way to harness the sun's energy.
"I felt solar energy had large potential but it was underused," he explained. "Fossil fuels like oil, coal and natural gas are only finite and are slated to run out by 2050.
"We need to make solar energy more cost effective and efficient."
With that thought in mind, Yuan got to work.
"Current solar cells are flat and can only absorb visible light," he said. "I came up with an innovative solar cell that absorbs both visible and UV light. My project focused on finding the optimum solar cell to further increase the light absorption and efficiency and design a nanotube for light-electricity conversion efficiency."
Yuan invested countless hours in his research, seeking out new resources in the field to find a workable real-world solution.
"He has worked very hard in the past couple years," his father Gang Yuan said. "We're grateful that he had great mentors and teachers to guide him.
"When he started on his research, he had great curiosity and wanted to dig into it more. As his parents, we looked for experiences to help him."
Watching his dedication impressed William's parents.
"This generation's sense of urgency is much stronger than my generation's," his father said. "They are thinking about the future and want to know how environmental issues will impact their generation."
Promising future
Tapping into that talent and giving gifted youth the opportunity to excel is what the Davidson Institute is all about.
The national nonprofit organization recognized 20 students this year for their
Re:Slashdotted and no comments.... (Score:5, Insightful)
> So does anyone know what 3d shape he used to achieve a 500x efficiency gain?
Since solar cells passed .5% with the first one, unless this kid attends Hogwarts this story is just this week's solar snake oil.
Re:Slashdotted and no comments.... (Score:5, Informative)
> 1) This absorbs both visible and UV light. Let's assume that's a factor of 2 improvement.
> 2) Although TFA fails to mention it, his cell is very large with ~250x the surface area of a traditional cell.
No, solar cells are typically judged based on the percentage of the energy hitting them that comes out the leads as usable electrical energy. Current cells already convery double digit percentages of the total energy hitting their surface so a 500x increase just isn't possible. But this is the eternal dream of the solar nuts that pops up on slashdot like clockwork every week or two, that some tech miracle will let us put solar cells on our roof and then we can do away with all that carbon based economy stuff because not only can we power our homes we can charge our tiny little scooters we will now call cars. Not happening, and anyone who can do math knows it because the energy density on a rooftop isn't enough, even with 100% efficiency which isn't going to be approached in our lifetime.
If you want to end the carbon economy and stop sending Sagan's of cash to people who want to cut our heads off there is only one short term solution. We need an Apollo type national commitment to building Nuke plants. Second we need to divert every research dollar available to fusion. And I mean EVERY available dollar. Freeze every other research at 75% of current dollars, AIDS, green tech, EVERYTHING included and start ramping up research on fusion just as fast as the projects can get vetted and construction underway. The only other research priority would be batteries. We know everything else about making a practical all electric vehicle.
Re:Slashdotted and no comments.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The EM spectrum doesn't have ends; it makes no sense to speak of something converting "1% of the EM Spectrum". Sunlight is, to a decent approximation, a black-body spectrum at about 5778 K. Of the total radiant power, about 12% lies in the ultraviolet (wavelengths shorter than 400nm), about 37% is visible, and about 51% is infrared (wavelengths longer than 700nm). At the distance of Earth's orbit, before any absorption by the atmosphere, it has a power density of about 1,367 W/m^2 (this varies depending on the time of year due to Earth's orbital eccentricity).
A given solar cell will be able to convert a certain proportion of incident radiation to electrical power; this efficiency in general will vary as a function of the wavelength, so the total power produced will be the integral over the entire spectrum of that efficiency multiplied by the incident power at that wavelength. Thus, the efficiency may depend somewhat on the spectrum used. For real-world solar cells, efficiency varies [wikipedia.org] from around 6% or so for the cheap ones in calculators and such up to 19% for high-end commercially available systems, and 40% for cutting-edge materials in the laboratory.
In brief, the claim that the technology referred to in the article can achieve a 500x efficiency improvement over existing solar cells is flagrantly incompatible with the first law of thermodynamics.
Re:Slashdotted and no comments.... (Score:4, Funny)
In brief, the claim that the technology referred to in the article can achieve a 500x efficiency improvement over existing solar cells is flagrantly incompatible with the first law of thermodynamics.
News just at hand! 7th grader loses science scholarship, gains marketing and sales scholarships.
Key line from the article: (Score:5, Interesting)
"Regular solar cells are only 2D and only allow light interaction once," he said.
If this means what I think it means, it would seem to indicate that he has worked out some type of translucent PV cell that allows him to either stack cells or to mirror the light to cause it to travel through multiple cells.
If you could create a translucent PV cell that still performed on par with today's leading PV cells, and you put it on top of a mirror, and then you put a semi-translucent mirror on top of the PV cell, you might be able to increase the efficiency of a single cell with out increasing the silicone. You'd still be losing some energy to heat, but from the lay-mans arm chair, it would seem to be worth a shot. And completely concievable as something a 12 year old who is good with math and science could figure out on paper (determine amount of energy input and the amount of energy transferred/lost to heat for each pass through the PV cell, and the reflection/refraction rates for the mirrors.
Anyway, that's my first thought after reading what scant details were mentioned.
-Rick
Amazing... (Score:5, Insightful)
If his idea works as well stated in the article, the guy deserves more than "a $25,000 scholarship from the Davidson Institute for Talent Development." The fact that it's a seventh grader makes it even more astounding.
Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought multi-layered solar cells which captured increasingly high energy photos were common. I thought there were clearly understood theoretical limits on conversion efficiency, and that it would not be remotely possible to get 500 times more light absorption than currently achieved. I'm extremely skeptical.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Funny)
...jelious...
Does that mean they're opaque and wobbly?
Re:Really? (Score:4, Informative)
Current technology does not only make use of visible light. Efficiency is measured in terms of all incoming irradiance, which includes some UV and some Infrared.
However, there's only so much that makes it through our atmosphere. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Atmospheric_electromagnetic_transmittance_or_opacity.jpg [wikipedia.org]
Profit! (Score:5, Funny)
Yuan cleared his throat, and continued: (Score:5, Funny)
"Furthermore...
OMG! Zerg Rush! KEKEKEKEKEKEKE"
apologies, i had to bring the discussion down to my iq level at his age
500 x the absorption? (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't absorb more light than is there.
I'm not doubting that this is an idea with merit, but IIRC current PV cells are about 10% efficient, recent one being rather better. I can conceive (although I'd be skeptical) of a cell that captures 500% of the energy that similarly priced cells do, which would amount to 50% efficiency. That's seems almost too good to be true, but not nearly as impossible as getting 50x more energy out than the Sun puts in.
Re:500 x the absorption? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like the usual problems with stories concerning science - The reporter chose that line of study in college because they could barely pass the remedial math classes.
My guess is that someone said that for a given 2D footprint, this could capture 500 time more if you stack these #D objects 50 high. Something you generally don't do with a 2D panel.
The reporter, being distracted by a piece of lint, heard that and wrote "500 times more efficient".
Re:500 x the absorption? (Score:5, Insightful)
But you cannot capture more than the sun puts out. The fact is that cheap solar cells capture a few percent of the amount of energy that reaches the surface of the earth, UV included. There is NO way to multiply the efficiency 500 times. My guess is 500% is what was said, and some reporter mistranslated it.
Re:500 x the absorption? (Score:5, Informative)
Come on. Is EVERYBODY an idiot here?
Thats not true.
Its the percentage of the whole solar spectrum, including UV and IR. And its not 10%, but >20% even for moderately priced solar cells (high end is 40%).
The article is plain bullshit.
Re:500 x the absorption? (Score:4, Informative)
The sun approximates to a black body (pretty well)
At around 6000K most of the energy is going to be visible and IR.
That will be above the atmosphere. I've no idea what proportion of each wavelength gets through the atmosphere but I know that UV is mostly blocked (and a good job too - that was one of the worries about ozone depletion)
Tim.
p.s. Just found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_radiation [wikipedia.org]
The spectrum of the Sun's solar radiation is close to that of a black body with a temperature of about 5,800 K. About half that lies in the visible short-wave part of the electromagnetic spectrum and the other half mostly in the near-infrared part. Some also lies in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum.[1] When ultraviolet radiation is not absorbed by the atmosphere or other protective coating, it can cause a change in human skin pigmentation.
500 times? (Score:5, Insightful)
So TFAbstract suggests that conventional solar cells absorb less then 0.2% of the available light? I call big BS on that, it is not even energy conversion, just absorbtion. So his new toy may only be getting hot in the sun, not doing anything usefull.
Now on to the article itself, see if it was only the submitter or more that did not grasp physics.
500x not actually possible (Score:5, Informative)
I call shenanigans. Current standard solar cells are more than 0.2% efficient, so a 500x improvement would capture more energy than the sun puts out.
While this could certainly improve the energy budget, it has the minor problem that it violates the laws of physics.
Re:500x not actually possible (Score:4, Informative)
Solar panels with his 3D cells would provide 500 times more light absorption than commercially-available solar cells and nine times more than cutting-edge 3D solar cells.
500x the light absorption not 500x the efficiency.
Tommy participates in class but does not pay attention...
Amazing! (Score:4, Funny)
Solar panels with his 3D cells would provide 500 times more light absorption than commercially-available solar cells and nine times more than cutting-edge 3D solar cells.
Since commercially-available solar cells in fact absorb more than 90% of the light in the usable bands-- and about fifty percent over the whole solar spectrum, including the non-usable wavelenghts-- that's pretty darn amazing.
But (Score:5, Informative)
what about these guys? [whatsnextnetwork.com]
They have been researching (and producing) cells like this for years; anyone see how they are different?
500*10% = 5000%!!! (Score:4, Funny)
Since commercially-available solar cells convert around 10% of the incident light to electricity, we can safely say that they are "absorbing" at least 10%.
So, if they absorb 500 times that amount we have a solar cell with 500*10% = 5000% conversion efficiency!
YOWZAH!!!
Now the skeptics out there will claim that this violates conservation of energy, but did they stop to consider that his may be a new form of low temperature solid state nuclear fusion merely catalyzed by solar radiation???
HMMMMM?????
Early draft of his plan looks something like... (Score:5, Funny)
1) Develop 3d nanotube solar cell
2) Win science contest
3) Complete manufacturing tests
4) Manufacture
5) Become billionaire...
6) Jill Smith will like me! x0x0x
Calculations (Score:4, Funny)
"At first, he couldn't believe his calculations.
"This solar cell can't be generating this much electricity, it can't be absorbing this much extra light," he recalled thinking."
And then he realized he should have divided instead of multiplied.
Really? 500 times? (Score:4, Insightful)
> his 3D cells would provide 500 times more light absorption
Bogus alert! BWEEEP BWEEEP! Bogus alert!
Quantum efficiency of current silicon-based cells in most of the visible light range is on the order of 90%. Look it up. (here, be lazy http://pvcdrom.pveducation.org/CELLOPER/QUANTUM.HTM)
To satisfy your curiosity, the reason the very best silicon-based cells have about 22% _electrical_efficiency_ in spite of capturing 90% or more of the incoming light is due to a wide variety of reasons, including:
1) re-radiating of the energy in the IR
2) electron mobility issues, getting trapped at impurities and such
3) recombination, where the ejected electron finds another hole before flowing out of the circuit - this becomes more of an issue for shorter wavelengths (blue, violet, UV)
4) not making it to a conductor on the surface; you can add more conductor but that blocks more light.
5) The #1 reason is that a single bandgap, like in a normal solar cell, can only extract a single amount of energy out of the photoelectrons. For silicon the cutoff is in the red. That means that the extra energy in blue light (or green, yellow, and especially UV) is wasted, turning into heat. You can tune the bandgap up to get more of that energy, but that means you can no longer capture the long-wavelengths and all of that energy down there is lost. It's a catch-22.
So adding "500 times" the absorption is, obviously, impossible. Now its possible this is 500x in the UV, but surface recombination wipes that out anyway. To solve THAT you have to use multi-junction cells. They're in production already, but extremely expensive. So again...
Bogus alert! BWEEEP BWEEEP! Bogus alert!
Maury
Re:Yes... (Score:4, Funny)
He can take $20 out of that $25,000 and buy them from the ninth grader down the street.
Re:Yes... (Score:5, Funny)
Use of "fixed that for you" shall be considered proof that the user is a completely awesome badass.
fixed that for you.
Re:Yes... (Score:4, Interesting)
How does it qualify as "well played" to make the same blindingly obvious "joke" that at least 30 other people have already made?
Re:Yes... (Score:5, Funny)
How does it qualify as "well played" to make the same blindingly obvious "joke" that I didn't think of?
Fixed that for you.
Re:Yes... (Score:5, Funny)
Uh huh. Whether I thought of it or not is irrelevant. Fact of the matter is that this is far from the first time a person with a sense of humor has decided that my signature needs this particular treatment.
Fixed that for you.
Re:skeptical (Score:4, Interesting)
being a jealous curmudgeonly skeptic, i have to ask: what are the careers of his parents?
i tend to observe suspicious correlations between kids that win science fairs and kids with parents that are scientists or engineers.
That is why kids are questioned without their parents present at science fairs.
It is not perfect, but it is sometimes hard to prove the difference between a parent who teaches their kid lots of science which puts there kid years ahead of their classmates, and a project that was simply done for them.
You wouldn't want to penalize someone who simply had scientific parents who are active in their kids education, would you?
In education (USA), kids with involved parents do better across the board because it is reinforced at home. This is sought after and encouraged in elementary/middle school education.
Re:Carbon nanotubes (Score:4, Insightful)
The article says he "designed" a carbon nanotube. Unless his design happens to match an easy-to-manufacture randomly-oriented blob of short carbon chain cylinders, it's not going to get very far. you can't just pick up carbon atoms and place them here and there like they were cinder blocks to match your custom design.
also i suspect that even if he is very, very bright, the properties (electrical, photonic) of his carbon nanotube design may not actually match his expectations. The use and applications of nanotubes is still kind of unusual and their properties are not as predictable a priori, as compared to silicon, for example.