Sandia National Labs recasts solar industry with MEMS PORTLAND, Ore. — Sandia National Labs has harnessed silicon's natural tendency to grow into islands and used micro-electro-mechanical systems techniques to free those islands into the world's smallest solar cells. Sandia claims the micron-sized solar cells are as efficient as their wafer-sized big brothers, but consume only one hundredth the amount of semiconductor. Rather than force solar cells to grow across an entire wafer in a perfect crystalline lattice, and throw the whole wafer away if any imperfections develop, Sandia National Labs has found that smaller is better. Measuring just 100 microns...