Fayetteville Firm Nears Solar Cell Breakthrough

Silicon Solar Solutions of Fayetteville has developed a method of improving the efficiency of solar cells by 15 percent, and the patent for its technology has been moved from provisional to pending by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Silicon Solar Solutions is a Genesis Technology Incubator client at the University of Arkansas and an Innovate Arkansas client firm. It received a $150,000 grant from the National Science Foundation in December to further advance the technology, developed in partnership with fellow UA graduate business plan team Picasolar. Silicon chief scientist Seth Shumate invented the self-aligned hydrogenated selective emitter for N-type solar cells, which increases efficiency. He serves on the Picasolar team and helped lead it to a win last month at the prestigious IBK Capital-Ivey Business Plan Competition at the University of Western Ontario. The team won $20,000 for first place. Read the full article from Arkansas Business, here.