Honeycomb like material developed by U.S. Department of Energy for solar windows

We’ve seen those solar energy soaking windows before. The scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory have come up with a material that could make the whole solar-window concept a lot more practical and realistic. The material basically uses semiconducting polymer doped with carbon-rich fullerenes. This material when applied to a surface self-assembles in a repeating pattern of micron-sized hexagonal-shaped cells like those in a honeycomb. Also, since the polymer chains pack together only at the edges of the hexagons, the material is almost transparent.

The edges of the honeycombed material absorb all that light and energy while the empty centers don’t. Technology today is constantly evolving, and with developments like these, we see a really bright future through some pretty green windows!
[Gizmag]