Obama OK's drilling off US coastlines today, while robots are constructing solar cells in 30 minutes or less (sounds like an old Domino's Pizza commercial). Glad at least SOMEONE out there is looking at alternative energy choices.....
New Robots Build Protype Solar Cells in 30 Minutes, Then Evaluate Their Own Work:
Companies flock to a government lab to put their latest solar cell technology in the hands of robots
One squat multitasking robot can build semiconductors for solar cells on six-inch-square plates of glass, plastic or flexible metals in just over half an hour. Six of these tireless mechanical workers, chugging away at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Colorado, will allow private companies to come rapidly prototype and test their newest formulas for creating solar cells.
Each robot acts as a central hub or master chef that pivots around to dish out plates to different chambers. In the chambers, semiconductors are built up layer by micro-thin layer, or crystals which help make the solar cells are grown and tested.
But each robot also specializes in using a different semiconductor material, or focuses on other aspects of solar cell production and testing. The six robots sit in six separate bays on the lab floor.
The robot that specializes in building silicon-based cells still holds the speed record of 35 minutes. Another robot creates solar cell batches with copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) as the semiconductor material. The final sixth robot that will work with cadmium-telluride cells is currently being installed.
Solar cell companies can hook up their own instruments to each central robot and see how their production process goes. A transportation system can even move the sample plates around to different robot bays to try out different processes that might enhance a solar cell's power.
What would be REALLY cool is that these robots were powered off the solar panels that they built - and then produced lots of excess energy, to boot.
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