{"id":8953,"date":"2016-01-18T09:00:16","date_gmt":"2016-01-18T14:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/ece\/?p=8953"},"modified":"2016-01-18T09:00:16","modified_gmt":"2016-01-18T14:00:16","slug":"spray-paint-to-soak-up-the-sun","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/ece\/news\/spray-paint-to-soak-up-the-sun\/","title":{"rendered":"Spray Paint to Soak Up the Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Susanna<\/a>Imagine a clear solar paint that you could spray onto windows to capture the elusive energy of the sun. Or bright neon paints that could coat sports cars to convert unharnessed solar rays into electricity as the vehicles cruise along the California coast.<\/p>\n

These 21st-century products of the future are the visions of Susanna Thon<\/a>, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering<\/a>. A physicist, Thon has converted her own interest in quantum computing into a passion for the basic science behind nanomaterials\u2014specifically quantum dots, used in sensors and LEDs, and metals, such as silver, gold, and aluminum\u2014to capture solar energy in flexible liquids, such as paints or films, and convert it to electricity.<\/p>\n

Today, conventional silicon solar cells\u2014used in brittle, flat panels mounted upon rooftops\u2014are capable of absorbing and converting just about 25 percent of the energy in the sun\u2019s light rays, mostly in the visible wavelengths. Almost half the sun\u2019s untapped energy store resides in the invisible infrared band\u2014those harmless, longer wavelengths used in fiber-optics telecommunications, night vision, and thermal imaging.<\/p>\n

Materials such as colloidal quantum dots\u2014nanomaterials composed of tiny chunks of semiconductors\u2014can be engineered to absorb energy from many wavelengths\u2014even the elusive infrared\u2014but they aren\u2019t good at transporting energy as electricity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is our challenge,\u201d says Thon.<\/p>\n

In the basement of Barton Hall, in her NanoEnergy Laboratory<\/a>, Thon is setting out to solve this scientific conundrum. On a recent day, an undergraduate and graduate student in the eight-member lab are making a solar cell by using a syringe to flow a brownish film on a glass slide. The liquid contains trillions of lead sulfide quantum dots. Thon will go on to layer different materials\u2014like a seven-layer torte cake\u2014to optimize the solar cell\u2019s absorption and conversion properties.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe different layers are needed for the solar cells to work electrically,\u201d explains Thon. \u201cBut people haven\u2019t thought about using these same layers as optical layers, too. It turns out, by changing thickness, you can change the optical properties of the whole device as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thon postulates that metals in nanoparticles could essentially turn themselves into tiny \u201coptical antennas\u201d that could localize light to increase the energy absorption of surrounding materials. She sees great promise in these hybrid materials, and she has submitted an academic paper, currently under review, detailing the potential. \u201cIt\u2019s easy to engineer your material to do one thing or the other,\u201d Thon says. \u201cWe want to do both.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared in the Winter 2016<\/a> issue of Johns Hopkins Engineering magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","class_list":["post-8953","news","type-news","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSpray Paint to Soak Up the Sun - Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/ece\/news\/spray-paint-to-soak-up-the-sun\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Spray Paint to Soak Up the Sun - Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Imagine a clear solar paint that you could spray onto windows to capture the elusive energy of the sun. Or bright neon paints that could coat sports cars to convert unharnessed solar rays into electricity as the vehicles cruise along the California coast.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/ece\/news\/spray-paint-to-soak-up-the-sun\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Spray Paint to Soak Up the Sun - Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/ece\/news\/spray-paint-to-soak-up-the-sun\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Spray Paint to Soak Up the Sun - Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering","og_description":"Imagine a clear solar paint that you could spray onto windows to capture the elusive energy of the sun. 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