British Startup Claims Record Efficiency In Simple Solar Cell


A spin-off of the Imperial College London claims to have produced the world’s most efficient simple, or single-junction, solar cell.

QuantaSol of Kingston-upon-Thames said the cell it produced in two years achieves 28.3 percent efficiency in converting sun light into electricity.

The “strain-balanced, single-junction, quantum-well” cell was tested by Fraunhofer ISE at greater than 500 suns. A single junction cell enables current to flow in just one direction.

The company was formed in 2007 to commercialize the college’s solar technology. It’s cell makes use of nanostructures of two different alloys that are painted on top of crystalline silicon.

The company, which raised second-round funding last week, plans higher efficiency multi-junction cells in the first quarter of next year.


“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 CEO Kevin Arthur.