Aug
New technology could lead to solar cells that work at night, cool PC components
Filed Under (energy) by Abbas on 12-08-2008
Tagged Under : energy
So we’ve all been hearing about how the efficiency of solar cells is being increased after every couple of months, well how about solar cells that could generate energy even at night? And even cool your PC components in the process of generating energy for your devices? That’s the kinda solar cells the Idaho National Laboratory’s physicist Steven Novack and his team has been working on lately.
These flexible solar cells consist of massive arrays of nanoantennas, which can collect energy from light and other sources. These nanoantennas absorb a targeted wavelength range of mid-infrared rays. Since heat is mostly emitted in form of IR, so these solar cells can actually cool your future gadgets by absorbing those IR rays that your overheating gadgets release, and create useful energy during the process.
Another good thing is that our beloved planet Earth is actually emitting these IR rays all the the time, because of the sunlight it absorbs during day time. So if these solar panels actually make it to the mainstream market it’d be a massive upgrade to our current solars cells that operate during day time only. Hit the source link for more info.
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