Surrey firm creates world record breaking solar cell

QuantaSol's single-junction device – the quantum-well solar cell (SB-QWSC) – was developed in less than two years and has shown to be extremely efficient at high temperatures, achieving a 28.3 per cent efficiency at greater than 500 suns. The device has been independently accredited by German test house Fraunhofer ISE and, although other single junction solar cells have come as close one per cent to the QuantaSol record, regular photovoltaics (PV) only run at approximately 11 or 12 per cent efficiency.

Established in June 2007, QuantaSol, a spin-out from Imperial College London to commercialise the university’s solar cell IP and offer devices to concentrator PV systems developers, plans next year to begin producing two and three junction solar cells – and will also aim for world records with them.

“Our technology is the industry’s best kept secret. This is the first time that anyone has successfully combined high efficiency with ease of manufacture, historically a bug-bear of the solar cell industry,” said Kevin Arthur, QuantaSol’s ceo. “We’re now gearing up to provide multi-junction cells of even higher efficiencies as early as Q1 2010.”

QuantaSol’s approach combines several nanostructures, of two or more different alloys, in order to obtain synthetic crystals that overcome the problems associated with current solar cell designs. It also greatly enhances the PV conversion efficiency.

The company, which is funded and backed by the Low Carbon Accelerator and Imperial Innovations, completed a £2 million second funding round last week and will now – although customer are currently testing single junctions to prove reliability –  concentrate on cutting the cost of ownership of solar energy by moving to multi-junction devices. QuantaSol is hoping to have the first samples of the dual junction device on the market by 2010.