Innovative solar cell maker HyperSolar has completed a prototype design of its new thin solar concentrator.

As you might remember from my post from Oct. 26, 2010, the company is focusing increasing solar cell output by magnifying the sun’s rays:

Tim Young, CEO of HyperSolar, commented, “Our ultimate goal is to develop an inexpensive and thin solar concentrator for use in replacing expensive solar cells in conventional flat solar panels. After a year of intense research and development, we are excited to report that we have finally achieved a prototype design that we believe can be refined into a commercial product. While this initial prototype is designed to provide 300% light magnification, we are aiming for at least 400% in our final commercial product.”

The company anticipates the commercial version of the HyperSolar concentrator will be approximately 1 centimeter thick and will be applied as the top sheet on flat solar panels. The initial prototype will be a single micro-concentrator module fabricated at a larger size to facilitate testing and validation of its real-life performance. Once the photonic and optical characteristics of the micro-concentrator module are validated and refined, the design can be easily miniaturized for use in the mass production of the commercial version HyperSolar concentrator.

HyperSolar officials say their concentrator will reduce the number of solar cells necessary in a panel by 75 percent.