I don't know if we have any physicists on the forums (I know we have a few chemists and biologists), but can anyone comment in a semi-informed fashion?
#2
strawman
Interesting, and certainly novel. They're still operating in the theoretical, though, and the numbers are not impressive. If they can make it to the practical stage, it'll have some specialized applications. If they can get it to the cheap stage, it might have wider applications. If they can combine it with current solar technology (one eats the photons, one eats the magnetic field) then we can double the efficiency of the whole cell.
But it wouldn't surprise me if it got as far as a few papers, and maybe a tech company trying to commercialize it for its unique properties. I doubt we're going to see it powering anything significant for a decade.
Bulk solar cells using organic semiconductors on flexible substrates is going to be the next cheapest iteration of solar technology. They can essentially be printed onto plastic, so you can produce continuous rolls of solar cells drastically lowering the cost of production. Not as efficient as silicon based, but should be cheaper per kW soonish.
