26 August, 2020
Solar cells can now be made so thin, light and flexible that they can rest on a soap bubble. The new cells, which efficiently capture energy from light, could offer an alternative way to power novel electronic devices, such as medical skin patches, where conventional energy sources are unsuitable.
12 July, 2020
Better understanding the science that underpins well-known techniques for developing quantum dots—tiny semiconducting nanocrystals—can help reduce the guesswork of current practices as material scientists use them to make better solar panels and digital displays.
03 May, 2020
Iain McCulloch, the director of the KAUST Solar Center, has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society. McCulloch, who is a KAUST professor of chemical science, as well as a Chair in Polymer Materials at Imperial College London, has made discoveries in chemical design and synthesis to control the assembly of organic semiconducting molecules to form ordered structures with specific electrical and optical properties, for use in a range of devices including transistors and solar cells.
26 February, 2020
Long-lived inverted perovskite solar cells can achieve efficiencies close to that of highly efficient yet fragile conventional perovskite solar cells, researchers at KAUST have shown. The discovery could lead to perovskite solar panels that have operational lifetimes and light-capturing efficiencies that rival traditional silicon solar panels, but that are significantly simpler, less energy-intensive and less expensive to make.
27 January, 2020
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in collaboration with ARMOR, a global technology company and pioneer of solar solutions has created a new style of outdoor seating, incorporating flexible, lightweight and semi-transparent solar technologies.
05 January, 2020
Wearable electronics could be perpetually powered by stretchy, self-mending materials that use body heat to generate electricity. Three carefully curated organic compounds have been combined to develop a prototype thermoelectric material that is both stretchy and self-healing, can generate its own electricity, and is robust enough to withstand the stresses and strains of daily life.
27 June, 2019
Some of the vast amount of wasted energy that machines and devices emit as heat could be recaptured using an inexpensive nanomaterial developed at KAUST. This thermoelectric nanomaterial could capture the heat lost by devices, ranging from mobile phones to vehicle engines, and turn it directly back into useful electricity.
11 June, 2019
Organic solar cells could soon rival traditional silicon-based photovoltaic technologies in terms of conversion efficiency. A team from the KAUST Solar Center has developed a computational approach that provides practical performance targets and useful rules to help design and develop material systems for optimal organic solar cells.