African Currents

Turning Vision into Reality: South African Scientist Makes Solar Power Breakthrough

In 2005, South African physicist Vivian Alberts changed solar power with a new thin-film technology that uses a light five-element alloy instead of silicon. Now patented in over 100 countries, this affordable option can make solar power more widely available, especially in developing countries where accessibility and cost are big factors.
Sputnik
While silicon is widely recognized as a semiconductor, its inefficiency in sunlight absorption poses significant challenges for solar technology. Thin-film materials like copper indium gallium selenide can achieve remarkable absorption rates with just one micron of material, paving the way for reduced production costs and enhanced efficiency, says Vivian Alberts, former professor of physics at the University of Johannesburg and senior principal researcher at the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority R&D Centre in the United Arab Emirates.

"Silicon is well known. Of course, it's used in all its conical devices, computers, and cell phones. It's a well-established semiconductor material. But actually, looking at silicon itself as a semiconductor, it's not ideally suited to convert sunlight into electrical power because it's called an indirect semiconductor material - meaning that it actually has a relatively poor ability to absorb sunlight and to convert it into electronic processes to provide electricity. So, the idea of different types of thin film materials like copper indium gallium diselenide [CIGS] which I developed, is that you only need one micron of this material, which is a thousand thousandth of the thickness of a human hair to absorb 99% of the incoming sun," Professor Alberts noted.

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