Affordable solar energy for every household has moved closer to reality thanks to a ground-breaking discovery at the University of Queensland (UQ).
Professor Max Lu, from UQ's Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, said researchers were one step closer to the holy grail of cost-effective solar energy.
"We have grown the world's first titanium oxide single crystals with large amounts of reactive surfaces, something that was predicted as almost impossible," Professor Lu said.
"The crystals absorb sunlight and convert it into electricity."
Prof Lu, who has been working on the project for the past 15 years, said the crystals were a cheaper alternative to solar panels.
He expects it to take up to 10 years for the technology to be commercially available.
Prof Lu said the crystals could also be used to purify air and water, and expected that to take about five years to commercialise.
The work was the result of a long-term international collaboration with Professor Hui-Ming Cheng's group from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
