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Old 12-24-2012, 05:43 PM   #6
tw
Read? I only know how to write.
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Posts: 11,933
Reflection is not the major reason for low solar cell efficiencies. Semiconductors only create electricity from photons at specific frequencies. Other frequencies get reflected or lost as heat.

Meanwhile, a new material called dilute nitrates were developed for better fiber optic communication about a decade ago. Recently, Solar Junction implemented this in a solar cell that claims a phenomenal 44% efficiency. By using multiple PN junctions tuned to significant frequencies of light. A lab version has three junctions. Speculation says efficiencies of 50% may be possible with four or six junctions.

Required in any recommendation are numbers. No numbers is the first fact to see through a myth. How efficient was that Princeton cell? I did not see any numbers. Maybe numbers exist. But I read looking for what is most important - numbers. Those numbers should even be in every executive summary.

A recommendation without numbers should have had everyone asking damning questions. Not asking that question in 2003 meant a majority also believed Saddam had WMDs. A contempt for the American soldier. If a miracle device does not include numbers, then it may be as bogus as Listerine or Pond's Age Defying Creams.

Solar Junction addressed a primary reason for low efficiency solar cells. Not reflection. Solar Junction also quantified those claims with specific numbers. Photocells, unfortunately, were not tuned to the many frequencies found in sunlight. Which explains so many solar cells with as low as 2% efficiency.
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