The U. S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Stanford University have teamed up to create what may be the thinnest of thin solar cells – a peel-and-stick decal. One micron thick, the decal-like peel-and-stick, or water-assisted transfer printing (WTP), technologies were developed by Stanford researchers and have been used for nanowire based electronics. Meeting at a conference where both made presentations, Stanford’s Xiaolin Zheng talked about her peel-and-stick technology, and NREL principal scientist Qi Wang spoke on his team’s research in thin-film amorphous solar cells. Zheng realized that the NREL had the type of solar cells needed for her peel-and-stick project, according to the NREL announcement. The NREL press release explains, “The university and NREL showed …