Size can be deceiving. A small silicon cell the size of a quarter can now hold enough solar power to support nearly three times the power to weight ratio of a flying object. This is thanks to the work of Dr. Anthony Lochtefeld, the founder and CEO of 14Solar and inventor of the the company’s ultra-thin silicon solar cell technology.

“We have developed a flexible silicon solar cell with the highest electrical output per gram in the world,” he said.

Dr. Lochtefeld, who spoke at Drone Focus Con in Fargo on June 1, emphasized how solar powered aircraft has been on the radar of many large companies such as Google and Facebook. These tech giants are using solar energy to power massive telecommunication drones, with the goal of providing better Wi-Fi access to all parts of the world.

Solar cells until this point, however, have been weighty and stiff. A Swiss lead effort to design, build and fly a piloted aircraft on solar power alone ended up using 17,000 solar cells. The combined weight of the cells was around 3,000 pounds, Lochtefeld said.

With 14Solar’s solar cells, they can shave off about 200 pounds from that total, he said. Not a huge number, “but enough to add a co-pilot or batteries, or food and water.”

The flexible cells are most useful for high altitude telecommunication drones and low altitude fixed wing drone range extenders. They can fold in half without breaking, and are backed by a thin layer of steel.

At first, Lochtefeld and his team were focused primarily on the telecommunication drones, he said. Already, Facebook and Google are trial testing solar powered drones that can stay aloft for up to weeks at a time. The ultimate goal is to create a drone that could stay aloft, powered by the sun, for indefinite amounts of time.

Lochtefeld said he has been talking to some “big names” but couldn’t say any more on his connection to some of these major players in the telecom drone field.

However, after speaking with attendees at Drone Focus Con, Lochtefeld sees an equal need for range extension in low altitude drones, he said. This is an area they had previously not focused on, but plan to look at moving forward.

“It [the cells] can increase the range over 25%,” he said.

Lochtefeld, who specializes in studying semi-conductive material, began working on this project 16 years ago, he said. 14Solar, then called Amber Wave, focused primarily on micro electronics. Since then, the company has pivoted and now focuses exclusively on solar.

“I was interested in solar for, you know, save the world kind of reasons,” Lochtefeld said. “We ended up getting a government contract based on some of our solar technology, and that got us into solar.”

Dr. Lochtefeld led the company’s participation in the $100M DARPA Very High Efficiency Solar Cell (VHESC) Program, the U.S. Department of Energy’s SunShot Incubator program, the U.S. Army’s program for high performance flexible silicon photovoltaic devices and its collaboration with UNSW Australia on advanced photovoltaic solutions since 2011.

Initially, 14Solar was looking at different applications for the solar cell before they eventually turned to drones. Other uses include using the solar cells on roofing shingles, commercial steel panels, or even potentially on your car.

14Solar hopes to be in megawatt scale production by 2017, Lochtefeld said.

Dr. Lochtefeld holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, co-authored 100+ peer-reviewed papers on semiconductor materials and devices, and holds more than 80 U.S patents. 14Solar is based out of Salem, New Hampshire.

 

Photos by Emerging Prairie.