UNSW team in solar cell record

The researchers are aiming for 22 pc efficiency by 2013

Sydney researchers have proven a new laser process which has broken the world performance record for standard solar cells twice in two months.
Dr Matt Edwards from the University of NSW said that using the new process, his team achieved an efficiency of 19.3 percent in May, improving this to 19.4 perent in June.
Rooftop solar panels currently convert sunlight to electricity at an efficiency rate of around 18 percent.
Dr Edwards told the Sydney Morning Herald that while an increase of 1.4 percent “may not sound like much” it could deliver a cost saving of around $100 million a year to the “bottom line of a large solar cell company.”
The new cell design was developed with technolgy firm Centrotherm.
Non-standard silicon solar cells at UNSW produced an effiency rate of 25 percent in 2008, but those cells are currently expensive to produce.
“What my group is trying to do is take the high efficiency features of that world record 25 percent and fabricate them in cheap ways,” Dr Edwards told the SMH.