Reports are that American researchers have managed to find a way to make flexible solar cells with silicon wires that employ the use of only 1% of the entire material needed in order to develop traditional solar cells.

With the new method, scientists are now aiming to design thin, light solar cells that can be easily incorporated into clothes, for example, but the very immediate benefit will be the cheaper and simpler-to-install solar panels, as has been shared by the researchers.

The new material makes use of general silicon configured into wires which are micron-sized, instead of brittle wafers, and encases them in a polymer which is flexible and can be rolled or easily bent.

"The idea is it would be lower cost and easier to work with by being more flexible than conventional silicon solar cells", said researcher Michael Kelzenberg of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

Details of the findings were reported in Nature Materials on Sunday.