"Black Silicon" Advances Imaging, Solar Energy 114
waderoush writes "Forcing sulfur atoms into silicon using femtosecond laser pulses creates a material called 'black silicon' that is 100 to 500 times more sensitive to light than conventional silicon, in both the visible and infrared spectrums, according to SiOnyx, a venture-funded Massachusetts start-up that just emerged from stealth mode. Today's New York Times has a piece about the serendipitous discovery of black silicon inside the laboratory of Harvard physicist Eric Mazur. Meanwhile, a report in Xconomy explains how black silicon works and how SiOnyx and manufacturing partners hope to use it to build far more efficient photovoltaic cells and more sensitive detectors for medical imaging devices, surveillance satellites, and consumer digital cameras."
improved solar panels (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So what's the catch? (Score:3, Insightful)
While I'm quite skeptical as well, you should keep in mind that patent applications sit in limbo for a few years before being approved. (And 'patent pending' does nothing.) If it's that good, it would make perfect sense to keep the details under wraps until the patent application is approved - at which point anyone can read about it, just not use it for a while.
Efficiency isn't important - $/Watt IS (Score:4, Insightful)
I might be great news for solar power, but tell me about it once you have a working prototype with a noteworthy efficiency improvement.
From what I've read this story is more about image sensors, but for solar cell applications: I don't understand the fuss about all these 'breakthrough efficiency record' stories. For all but a few applications (think satellites, pocket calculators etc.) efficiency doesn't matter. There is no shortage of sunlight, and therefore no need to turn a maximum of it into electricity. What matters is price per generated electric power ($/Watt), and how long the solar cells will last.
If I'm not mistaken, the solar cell market is hitting the 1 $/Watt mark around now, and growing at what, 10% ? 20% ? 50% per year? Wake me up when solar cells become cheaper than roof tiles, or provide a return on investment in <5 years (for average households), and will last decades after that. Then you have a breakthrough.
Re:Who does that? (Score:1, Insightful)
Bizarre indeed, but on the other hand he just made a (hopefully) fantastic new from of our pal Silicaon Wafer so who are we to say anything. If you RTFA the scientist talks about the need for more people to sit around and act on their hunches rather then the immediate payoffs granted by rigid scopes. Or in other words he wants more scientists to start acting like scientists again.
AC because of mod points.
Re:Perhaps there isn't one (Score:3, Insightful)
> ...and it's not as though SiOnyx will be a paying proposition if the tech doesn't work...
It has already been a paying proposition for ten years for its employees, agents, consultants, lawyers, etc. This announcement could suck in enough new funding to stretch that another decade.
Note: I'm not saying that they don't have anything real: just that these things are often profitable for someone even when they don't pan out (and most don't). Look particularly at the venture capital types who get hefty fees for arranging for investing other people's money (not percentages of net profit: fees).
no need to rework those arguments! (Score:2, Insightful)
You are right, that is the idea. From Behe's book "Darwin's Black Box" (a pretty stupid book) the 'problem' is that systems can be "irreducibly complex". That is, like the mousetrap - remove or change any part and it stops working.
The problem again (and since Behe's is a biochemist he is either stupid or lying if he doesn't understand this) is that nature builds her mousetraps in a very different way.
All previous 'versions' of any particular mousetrap (or other design) HAD to work. Small changes to them, including replacing parts or modifying parts were made, and those mousetraps that failed to catch any mice were rejected (died off).
This is only possible with systems whose parts can be replaced with slightly similar ones, and still sort of work. Evolutionary systems have evolved to be evolvable.
So, it's not the self-assembly, but the mutability of natural systems that is under dispute. Most biologists understand that natural systems can change quite radically - species evolution - while a few ID-ers just don't get it. Their loss; natural systems are truly astonishing.
Re:Perhaps there isn't one (Score:3, Insightful)
It has already been a paying proposition for ten years for its employees, agents, consultants, lawyers, etc.
SiOnyx was formed in 2005, not 1999. Before that the team had to get funding the same way as everyone else at Harvard: peer assessed grant applications, with results subject to review. That doesn't eliminate the possibility of it being a sham, but sustaining the illusion of success for that long in that environment would be an impressive feat.
This announcement could suck in enough new funding to stretch that another decade.
I seriously doubt it. This isn't an announcement of a fundamental discovery (that was years ago), this said they're currently shipping working devices to developers. That's a really big claim to falsify, especially if it's used as the basis for procuring further investments (think "fraud").
Besides, FT xconomy A:
Maybe it's reverse psychology, but that doesn't sound to me like they're seeking investors. What it does sound like is they're trying to attract interest from semiconductor manufacturers to develop the process at a production level, which makes sense when you consider that the odds of a startup raising enough capital to build a commercial scale fabrication plant are pretty much zero.
I'm not saying that they don't have anything real: just that these things are often profitable for someone even when they don't pan out (and most don't).
The fact that VCs collect fees bears no direct relationship to the viability of any given project. And the majority of businesses fail*, not just high tech startups. Generalisations like this tell us nothing about which companies and technologies will be successful, so they're of little value.
Scepticism is perfectly reasonable for any new technology, but black silicon has already passed a significant number of checks to get to this stage, and a lot of that was before any prospect of commercialisation. On that basis I believe the article's claims, but without specific details about the development path, business plans and licensing arrangements making a judgement on the commercial viability one way or the other is pure uninformed speculation based on spurious assumpions.
*The figure I've heard is 50% of all businesses fail within 6 months.