Late at night, the alone scientist in the lab smacks their forehead and — voila! — an amazing solution to a problem coalesces, right? It usually doesn’t work like that: Science is incremental and collaborative. But, every once in a great while, a truly significant advance is made. Arizona State University’s Zach Holman is part of two teams that have made amazing recent advances in solar cell efficiency. Solar cells are vastly more efficient than they were 10 years ago. Cells on the market now — about 95% of the market — are 22% efficient. Physicists estimate the maximum theoretical efficiency for a single-material solar cell is 29.4%. Holman and his collaborators have created two new cells of 26% and 27% efficiency. Their findings were both published in the past three weeks. “Twenty-seven percent is an appreciable leap,” said Holman, an associate professor in the School of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering. “This is in many, many billions of dollars market. The companies that are operating in this space care about .05% efficiency. That’s dollars and cents for them.”