Lead based Solar Cells

Looks like the answer might be yes as nano particles, but there are some practical difficulties too. See for example:

I am pinning my hopes long term on a variant of organic LED technology producing something that is screen printable cheap and not necessarily massively efficient but incredibly low cost to manufacture. Tricky bit is making organic semiconductors photostable in strong sunlight.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

We didn't understand why our whiteboard in the conference room was behaving so strangely until we figured that daylight has enough UV in it to polymerize certain of the whiteboard marker pigments, which makes them very difficult to erase after a couple of days.

Sunlight is nasty stuff. Even silicon solar cells degrade.

John

[by the way I agree about low cost possibly low efficiency cells being the key]

Tricky bit

And I think one of the problems with OLEDs, which I assume are a related thin film technology, was stopping oxygen getting through the thin-enough-to-be-transparent membranes protecting them. You can also imagine that organic solar cells would be susceptible to being munched by some obscure microorganism once they're common enough to provide a reliable food source.

The problem is that the forward voltage of a PbSe diode is only a couple of tenths of a volt. You're absorbing 2.5 eV photons and only getting

0.2 volts on the terminals--that gets you 8% efficiency even if there were no other losses.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Some _formerly_ obscure microorganism.

I once saw an analysis where someone took the then-current pie-in-the-sky projections of computing power out to the far future (probably the year

2000), and determined that once computers were that small, some bug would evolve to eat them up.

--
www.wescottdesign.com

Skybuck Flying?

Ahh.... that's good to know! (Explains a lot) George H.

Interesting theory. However, white board markers become difficult to erase even in the absence of sunlight. Or even in the absence of fluorescent lighting. All it takes is a few days in total darkness. Lacquer thinner will instantly remove even the most stubborn white board marks, as well as the "permanent" markers like Sharpies. Art

Denatured alcohol works just ducky, even for Sharpies, and is not so hard on the hands. ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.

OLEDs have a layer of _calcium_metal_ in them, though, which is pretty ridiculous. (A couple of my pals did a lot of the early work on OLEDs, and I still tease them about that calcium metal layer....)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510
845-480-2058

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

message

OK. But what does it do to the white board surface? Well, there are so many, that may not be the right question.

?-/

related

Perhaps after some GM? (potential weapon)

pie-in-the-sky=20

would=20

related

My plate is a little full to go looking at that right now. Drat.

?-)

=20

Reminds me of efforts to do stacked PV layers.

?-)

It is unlikely to polymerise the pigments it might crosslink the binder to the surface of the whiteboard though for unfortunate choices. Any alcohol (even whisky or brandy) will get stubborn marks of whiteboards without harming the surface. More aggressive solvents may pit it and make your problems worse...

Most UV in sunlight doesn't make it through ordinary window glass although enough to fade inkjet prints does.

Indeed. Fade tests on exterior grade paints are very important. Most white paints depend on incident light to keep them from turning yellow.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown