thin

HelioVolt claims CIGS solar efficiency mark

Solar upstart HelioVolt on Monday will announce that it has reached 12.2 percent efficiency with its CIGS solar cells, setting another mark in the race against competitors and silicon.

Company CEO BJ Stanbery will present a paper at the IEEE Photovoltaics Specialists Conference where he will disclose the efficiency threshold which HelioVolt has reached in its labs. The well-financed company expects it can go much further in converting light to electricity.

More significant than the actual number is the fact that HelioVolt hit 12 percent efficiency with its manufacturing process, which it says can turn out a cell in … Read more

Coming to a mall near you: Power-generating windows

Solar company HelioVolt and Architectural Glass & Aluminum on Tuesday announced a partnership to produce glass windows capable of generating electricity.

HelioVolt is one of several new solar manufacturers using different materials to produce thin-film solar cells.

The company intends to make solar cells for rooftop panels and later get into building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV), where cells are embedded onto roof shingles, blinds, awnings, or other building components.

The deal with Architectural Glass & Aluminum calls for the companies to design solar-enabled curtain walls, the glass facades on the outside of buildings, or architectural glass in the interior of buildings.

Citing … Read more

Nanosolar to set sights on residential market

There's been an explosion in the number of solar companies over the past few years. But for the most part, product development is destined for power plants operated by utilities.

That won't always be the case, however, says Nanosolar CEO Martin Roscheisen, who wrote in a blog that the company will eventually serve the home rooftop market.

Nanosolar is a well-funded Silicon Valley solar manufacturer that started making thin-film solar cells and modules late last year. The first customer is a utility in east Germany.

In a recent blog, Roscheisen described why the company is targeting utilities first … Read more

Green Tech news harvest: More-efficient solar cells and 'biogasoline'

A sampling of green-tech news thus far this week, touching on solar cells, carbon markets, biofuels, and electric cars.

NREL: Record Makes Thin-Film Solar Cell Competitive with Silicon Efficiency Thin-film cells made from CIGS hit over 19 percent efficiency in NREL labs, rivaling traditional silicon. Shell, Virent form joint venture to convert crops to biogasoline | Chron.com/Houston Chronicle Forget ethanol. Here come hydrocarbons from plants. Shell and Virent to make 'biogasoline.' Technology Review: More-Powerful Solar Cells MIT spin-off 1366 Technologies (see Green Tech blog coverage) shoots for more efficient solar cells through manufacturing innovations. Pay for the Power, Not the Panels | The New York Times … Read more

LG struts TVs on London runway

If anyone cared enough to wonder why LG was showing off its latest LCD TVs at London Fashion Week, one look at them will provide the answer.

The company provided an early peek at its "Super Slim" line at CES last month, startling Crave television guru David Katzmaier with an unusual round hole in the frame. Now it's added even more personality to its "cutting-edge TV collection" for the U.K. market by giving it a red-colored back to complement the "soft red pulsating glow" of the round LED aperture, according to Pocket-lint.… Read more

Will thin clients rebound with higher power prices?

MENLO PARK, Calif.--The global rise in power consumption isn't bad for all species, it turns out.

Sun Microsystems is seeing increased customer interest in its Sun Ray, a thin desktop client, as electricity prices climb, said Subodh Bapat, vice president and chief engineer in the Eco Responsibility office at Sun. Bapat's comments came in a presentation during Sun's global media day taking place Wednesday.

Thin clients like the Sun Ray consume far less electricity than conventional desktops, he said. A Sun Ray on a desktop might consume 4 to 8 watts of power. That's because … Read more

Fujitsu claims thinnest waterproof phone

There's one constant in the gadget world: The minute you post an item that claims to have set a new record for being the smallest or thinnest fill-in-the-blank, someone will immediately dispute it. (The point was proven once again in discussions stemming from the MacBook Air.)

So the only thing we dare say is that, as of this writing, Akihabara News is reporting what it calls "the slimmest waterproof phone ever made." The 3G handset in question is the Fujitsu F705i, which measures 13.7 millimeters thick, or about 0.54 inches.

There are most certainly other … Read more

Hitachi unveils super-slim LCD TVs in Singapore

The Japanese electronic manufacturer's new LCD TVs are so thin and light that runway models can carry them around and even do a catwalk without breaking a sweat. That was the key message from Hitachi at its recent regional press event in Singapore. (More photos here.)

Available in black, red, white and blue, the UT series of LCD TVs was first unveiled three weeks ago in Japan and consists of two components: the monitor, which measures just 35mm thick (less than 1.4 inches), and a separate media station that houses the TV tuner, connectors, and S-iVDR slot. The … Read more

LG.Philips joins LCD diet trend

The ongoing trend for slim products in home audio-visual products continues with LG.Philips' recent announcement of its ultra-thin LCD panel at the FPD International 2007 event held in Japan. The companies claim that the new panel is 40 percent thinner and 10 percent lighter than conventional designs from their competitors, though other companies are working on similarly slim displays as well.

Measuring just 19.8 millimeters thick, the 42-inch screen packs more than 2 million pixels with a native 1,920x1,080 resolution and picture motion enhanced by a 120Hz video-scanning technology, according to DigiTimes. And in an apparent … Read more