Scientists Design Solar Cell That Captures Nearly All Energy of Solar Spectrum

[ChopStix]

Scientists Design Solar Cell That Captures Nearly All Energy of Solar Spectrum

https://www.rdmag.com/news/2017/07/s...solar-spectrum

Spoiler ~ this design is claimed to be 44.5 percent efficient, which if proven true, would make it the most efficient solar panels of today.

[redpoint5]

I wonder how feasible it is to use a prism, or a group of mini prisms to split the light and focus it on panels designed to convert the various wavelengths.

[freebeard]

The new device uses concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) panels that employ lenses to concentrate sunlight onto tiny, micro-scale solar cells. Because of their small size—less than one millimeter square—solar cells utilizing more sophisticated materials can be developed cost effectively.

The stacked cell acts almost like a sieve for sunlight, with the specialized materials in each layer absorbing the energy of a specific set of wavelengths. By the time the light is funneled through the stack, just under half of the available energy has been converted into electricity. By comparison, the most common solar cell today converts only a quarter of the available energy into electricity.

So it uses lenses or prisms to concentrate the light on smaller portions of the total area so they can use more expensive materials.

https://phys.org/news/2016-07-breakt...es-carbon.html

Using photosynthesis instead of photovoltaics to produce gasoline at competitive prices. It doesn't talk about efficiency; but, hey, gasoline.