<story><title>So long, silicon: Researchers create solar panels from cheap copper oxide</title><url>http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/134305-so-long-silicon-researchers-create-solar-panels-from-cheap-copper-oxide?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=so-long-silicon-researchers-create-solar-panels-from-cheap-copper-oxide</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>alecdibble</author><text>The takeaway from this article is that they came up for a technique to use cheaper materials instead of silicon. This is significant because silicon is very expensive and every increasing demand is also increasing the prices of it at a very fast rate. I took a class on CMOS Digital Design where the professor went over manufacturing overhead for a processor. The cost of the silicon alone was astounding, not even taking into account all the other overhead that comes with the process.&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, like a lot of other research in this field, its real world applicability may be relatively limited. One of the reasons for this is that so much time, money, and infrastructure has been put into modern silicon semiconductor manufacturing that no one really wants to touch anything else. It could mean starting from scratch and requiring massive amounts of R&amp;#38;D and process planning to break even.&lt;p&gt;The real breakthroughs come when someone keeps the existing silicon process in mind and makes discoveries that use the existing infrastructure. That&apos;s the kind of research that really &quot;changes&quot; things.&lt;p&gt;If someone could come up with a manufacturing system that was cheap and easy to swap out or modify the process, they could literally change technology as we know it. If you could have the capability to scale processes easily, a lot of the really cool and cutting-edge research could get implemented on a large scale.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I graduated as an electrical engineer and have taken several clean room processing classes, in case you were wondering.</text></comment>
<story><title>So long, silicon: Researchers create solar panels from cheap copper oxide</title><url>http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/134305-so-long-silicon-researchers-create-solar-panels-from-cheap-copper-oxide?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=so-long-silicon-researchers-create-solar-panels-from-cheap-copper-oxide</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>debacle</author><text>Disclaimer: I am not a physicist, and most of this is from memory relating to DIY experiments ~2 years ago.&lt;p&gt;* Copper oxide panels are not new.&lt;p&gt;* They are much less efficient than silicon panels.&lt;p&gt;* Cu2O is much more expensive than silicon.</text></comment>