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Solar cells made through oil-and-water 'self-assembly'


12 January 2010

Read More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8452912.stm

Researchers have demonstrated a simple, cheap way to create self-assembling electronic devices using a property crucial to salad dressings.

- It uses the fact that oil- and water-based liquids do not mix, forming devices from components that align along the boundary between the two.

- In this approach, "blank" devices are etched with depressions to match precisely-shaped components. Simply dumped into a liquid, the components should settle down into the blank device like sand onto a riverbed, in just the right places.