The technology eventually could be deployed on a sandwichlike photovoltaic cell coated with the water-splitting catalyst on one side and a proton-reducing catalyst on the other.
A solar cell coated with a material whose refractive index is identical to that of air would reflect no light at all.
The apparatus, about the size of a playing card, incorporated a silicon solar cell coated with catalytic materials.
In the version described, oxygen bubbles from the side of the solar cell coated with the cobalt-based catalyst and hydrogen from the other side.
Interestingly, LCs in a glass plate cell coated with these side-chain non-liquid crystalline copolymers showed anchoring transitions and weak anchoring interface formation at precise temperatures.
In Figure 5, I-V curves for bare Si solar cell and Si solar cell coated with QD-doped PLMA (CQD = 0 and 1.6 mg/ml) are depicted.
This is due to the low reflection between the wavelength 350 to 500 nm, in respect to the solar cell coated with a ZnO nanotube.
It should be noted here that unlike ΔI/I, which is with respect to bare Si solar cell, Δη/η0 is with respect to Si solar cell coated with pure PLMA (CQD = 0).
A solar cell efficiency enhancement is defined as Δη/η0 = (η1− η0)/η0, where η0 and η1 are photoelectric conversion efficiencies of Si solar cell coated with QD-doped PLMA with CQD = 0 and CQD ≠ 0, respectively.
ΔI/I is defined as (I1−Ibare)/Ibare, where Ibare and I1 are ISC's for bare Si solar cell and Si solar cell coated with QD-doped PLMA, respectively.
