It's more than just ‘med arb’: The case for ‘transitional arbitration’

Converting to mediation from arbitration gives most people the willies, even when it's not a new experience. Gerald F. Phillips, of Los Angeles, describes how he embraces his mediator's role in “transitional arbitration,” and how combined processes can work.     

‘Wild Ideas’: Radiation-resistant silicon solar cells

Innovative cell structures for thin-film crystalline silicon solar cells should facilitate the achievement of relatively high performance from poor material quality. In particular, a design strategy based on heavily doped, multiple interleaved n- and p-type layers, in conjunction with the buried-contact solar cell approach, is presented. an example design is modelled to demonstrate the corresponding effective ‘radiation hardness’ and the ability to achieve high performance, even with poor minority carrier diffusion lengths expected at end-of-life (EOL) for a space cell. Results of modelling indicate that degradation in performance, sustained through typical space radiation damage, can be limited to approximately 5%. Using the same approach for terrestrial thin-film crystalline silicon cells fabricated from low-quality, low-cost material, eficiencies well above 16% should be feasible.