Cheapers solar panels that work even in the night

[W1nTry]

Now just to get those darn nano-rectifiers and we'll have a winner on our hands!!!

Boffins build cheap solar sheets

Gold nano-antennas can collect heat from many sources

By Ian Williams: Wednesday, 13 August 2008, 1:59 PM

Click here to find out more!

A GROUP OF researchers at the US Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory (INL) say they have found an inexpensive way to produce plastic sheets that can collect heat energy generated by the sun and other sources.

The boffins use billions of nano-antennas, tiny gold squares or spirals set in a specially treated form of polyethylene, which can be mass-produces on flexible materials.

The nano-antennas target mid-infrared rays, which the Earth continuously radiates as heat after absorbing energy from the sun during the day, making them usable both at day and night.

"Every process in our industrial world creates waste heat," says INL physicist Steven Novack. "It's energy that we just throw away."

The researchers played around with a number of materials and found that with the right materials, shape and size, the simulated nano-antennas could harvest up to 92 per cent of the energy at infrared wavelengths.

Kotter explained that the process itself is not new and that others have invented antennas that collect energy from lower-frequency regions of the spectrum, but until now infrared rays have proven more elusive.

Because the nano-antennas absorb infrared radiation they could also be used as cooling devices.

Before we start celebrating the end of the energy crisis, Kotter has pointed out that they currently don't have a way of turning the collected energy into usable electricity.

Basically, the infrared rays create alternating currents in the nano-antennas that oscillate trillions of times per second, but today's rectifiers can't handle such high frequencies.

"We need to design nanorectifiers that go with our nanoantennas," explained Kotter.

He explained that a nano-scale rectifier would need to be about 1,000 times smaller than current commercial devices or alternatively they would have to develop electrical circuitry that might slow down the current to usable frequencies.

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/08/13/boffins-build-cheap-solar-sheets

[TriniXaeno]

It sounded great at first but later in the article it got "pie in the sky"-ish.

[Crixx_Creww]

no such thing as pie in the sky ish any more.

any and everything that is discovered or on the verge of discovery, will come to light.

the world may be in a downward spiral
but this is a brilliant age of science and technology.

we can achieve all, we are reaching that stage of our evolution

things that were said to be impossible ten years ago, are at a stage to almost be common place now.