Horace Heffner
Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:06:47 -0800
Jones,Thanks for posting that reference! Cool! Actual desktop USB interface computer laser cutters. And they sell used ones on occasion too.
That stuff reminds me of the liquid sodium silicate I used to play with as a kid. It was sold under the name "Eisenglass" I think. It came as a viscous liquid in quart cans. It was used to paint eggs (still in the shells) in order to preserve them longer I think. This lost importance when refrigerators became common. I added chemicals like copper sulfate to the Eisenglass to grow a "chemical garden" in a glass jar. It formed neat plant-like tentacles. I don't know where I got the "recipe" for that. I think it might have been Sci. Am. or Pop. Sci.
I am curious as to why you think circuits have to be etched? To use silicon for a solar cell I think it has to be doped, so as to create a PN boundary. It is the potential drop across the PN boundary that actually drives a solar cell. The sun "merely" creates the ions in the gap so they can be accelerated across it. I do wonder if it might be possible to use a zinc or zinc plated substrate (zinc is a hole conductor) coated with silicon that is chemically doped as an N (electron) conductor. If so, the remaining things necessary to create a solar cell are a transparent conductive overcoating, and possibly the printing of a very conductive metallic collector circuit on top.
On Feb 9, 2010, at 6:51 AM, Jones Beene wrote:
Ron, You have to wonder - with liquid glass and a commercial laser engraver (etcher) which is similar to an ink jet printer - http://www.epiloglaser.com/product_line.htm and some imagination and metal-coated film, if one could not etch thecircuits with the printer, then coat this film with the glass, and thereby make a large and fairly efficient homemade nano-solar thin film photocellarray... Jones -----Original Message----- From: Ron Wormus This sounds very cool. <http://www.physorg.com/news184310039.html> Ron
Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/