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Special coating will increase the efficiency of solar panels
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
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Engineers at Stanford Research Institute have created a unique silicon coating that will help improve the efficiency of solar panels and maintain temperature.
The coating is capable of collecting heat, which is then radiated into space; the special feature of the technology is that it does not block incoming photons.
The development can be useful for cooling any devices located outdoors.
Solar panels can heat up to 800ºС by evening (especially in countries with warm climates), and excess heat becomes a problem of sorts: cells need sunlight to collect energy, but efficiency starts to decrease as the temperature rises. For example, traditional silicon cells lose about 20% of their efficiency at 100ºС.
In computers, laptops, etc., the problem of overheating is solved with the help of fans and radiators, but for devices located outdoors, such as solar panels, experts decided to use the surrounding space as a heat absorber.
Professor Shanghai Feng and his team of scientists have developed a special silicon coating that can transfer heat into space. The principle of operation is based on the collection of heat, which is then emitted in the form of electromagnetic infrared waves that easily pass through the atmosphere. The coating is colorless, so the light-absorbing capacity of the cells does not decrease at all.
Professor Fan's team tested the new technology using thermal solar collectors (the scientists took three devices, two of which had heat-dissipating mechanisms with silicon dioxide and photonic crystals). As the experiment showed, the heat-dissipating mechanisms effectively dealt with the heat.
Visible light easily passes through the coating to the solar cells, while lowering the temperature of the main element to 130ºC. Scientists note that despite the fact that the efficiency increases by no more than 1%, this is quite sufficient for a solar cell.
In addition, experts offer several more improvements that will help not only in cooling devices, but also increase efficiency.
Engineers note that solar panels with the new coating are best used in a clean and dry environment. Also, experiments with collectors were conducted in winter, when it is recommended to tilt them 600 to the south in order to reduce the area of projection into the sky and increase the absorption capacity, and this, in turn, leads to a decrease in cooling capacity.
In addition, according to experts, traditional cooling elements can also be added to the flint coating.
Shanghai Feng and his colleagues are confident that the new technology can be applied to any outdoor device that needs cooling, for example, the colorless coating can be used to cool cars and save fuel, without compromising the aesthetics.