When you think of a solar cell, you probably think of something designed to absorb as much sunlight as possible. What you probably don’t think of is something that is also capable of emitting light. Nonetheless, that’s exactly what a new prototype device designed more like an LED does, and it recently set an efficiency record for flat-plate single junction solar cells.
The cell was created by Alta Devices, a California-based company co-founded by University of California, Berkeley professor of electrical engineering Eli Yablonovitch. Together with graduate student Owen Miller, he worked out a mathematical principle which states that “the better a solar cell is at emitting photons, the higher its voltage and the greater the efficiency it can produce.”
via gizmag
