Photoswitch brings energy storage and a cool efficiency boost to photovoltaics

Solar cells may need sunlight, but they generally fare badly in the heat, operating less and less efficiently as they get hotter. Researchers led by Kasper Moth-Poulsen at the Polytechnic University of Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain have now tackled the heating that usually occurs in solar cells exposed to sunlight, by introducing a molecular solar thermal energy storage system (Most) – a layer of photoswitching molecules that absorb some of the energy that would have been converted into waste heat.