A U.S. company is developing plastic solar cells for portable electronic devices that will incorporate technology invented at the University of Chicago, the university said on Thursday.

The company is on track to complete a commercial-grade prototype later this year, said Dina Lozofsky, vice president of IP development and strategic alliances at Solarmer.

The prototype, a cell measuring eight square inches (50 square centimeters), is expected to achieve 8 percent efficiency and to have a lifetime of at least three years, according to a press release issued by the University of Chicago.

New materials with higher efficiencies are the key in the industry, it said. Plastic solar cells are behind traditional solar-cell technology in terms of the efficiency that it can produce right now.

The invention, a new semiconductor material called PTB1, converts sunlight into electricity. The active layer of PTB1 is a mere 100 nanometers thick, the width of approximately 1,000 atoms. Synthesizing even small amounts of the material is a time-consuming, multi-step process.

The university licensed the patent rights to the technology to Solarmer last September.

An advantage of the Chicago technology is its simplicity. Solarmer has entered into a sponsored research agreement with the university to provide additional support for further research.

Source: Xinhua