SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
New system aims to harness the full spectrum of available solar radiation.
The key to creating a material that would be ideal for converting solar energy to heat is tuning the material’s spectrum of absorption just right: It should absorb virtually all wavelengths of light that reach Earth’s surface from the sun — but not much of the rest of the spectrum, since that would increase the energy that is reradiated by the material, and thus lost to the conversion process.
Now researchers at MIT say they have accomplished the development of a material that comes very close to the “ideal” for solar absorption. The material is a two-dimensional metallic dielectric photonic crystal, and has the additional benefits of absorbing sunlight from a wide range of angles and withstanding extremely high temperatures. Perhaps most importantly, the material can also be made cheaply at large scales.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 01 2014, @06:18AM
Every 3 to 6 months we read of another super solar improvement - greatly efficient and cheap to mass produce. Yet on the market all you get is very inefficient and extremely expensive solar components. When are we going to see a real change?
Granted the existing energy companies have a vested interest in keeping solar expensive .. maybe THAT is the key.