SOLAR cells were once a bespoke product, reserved for satellites and military use. In 1977 a watt of solar generating capacity cost $77. That has now come down to about 80 cents, and solar power is beginning to compete with the more expensive sort of conventionally generated electricity. If the price came down further, though, solar might really hit the big time—and that is the hope of Henry Snaith, of Oxford University, and his colleagues. As he described recently in Science, Dr Snaith plans to replace silicon, the material used to make most solar cells, with a substance called a perovskite. This, he believes, could cut the cost of a watt of solar generating capacity by three-quarters.
When light falls on a solar cell, it knocks electrons away from the cell’s material and leaves behind empty spaces called holes. Electrons and holes then flow in opposite directions and the result is an electric current. The more electrons and holes there are, and the faster they flow, the bigger the current will be. . . .
