Different Colors

[perpetualthinker]

Hey,

   Do different wave legths produce more electricity on a solar panel? Or does it low the power level because it doesnt have the full power of all the wave legths?

Thanks for your time.

[Wolfie1]

Each solar panel material produces electricity best in a band of frequencies.

More expensive panels (think nasa budgets) have two or three layers of materials. Each layer produces power from the range of frequencies that it 'likes' best. The overal effect is to make better use of the entire light and off-light spectrum.

Martin.

[jsatan]

Yeah, it comes fown to the wavelengths that will move the electrons in different types of atoms, eg zinc and UV works(dont know the frquency) and so different atoms for different wavelengths that you receive in the light.

Peace jsatan

[TomW]

Perpetualthinker;

Excess posting limit exceeded.

T

[DanB]

Perpetual thinker...

I have to agree with TomW on this one.  Please take no offense though... you're definitely new to this board.  Basicly though - in order not to have the front page move along too quickly - it's best if your questions are somewhat researched, and to some degree thought out.

As the board is now - all new postings appear on the front page.  I often move some (which I consider to be a bit redundant, or... off topic, or pehaps slightly less interesting) to display only in their catagory.  The discussion can continue there.  I've moved a few of yours, and left a couple here on the front page for now.

If postings become rude, or inflamatory - we may erase them all together, there is no place for that sort of thing here.

With that said... I'll also add (and some may disagree which is fine!)... after years of being in the "magnet business" - I tire very quickly of the topic of perpetual motion and most such postings will be quicky moved to "Weird Science" - or..  erased all together - because such postings often become inflamatory and irritating right off the bat.   Perpetual motion, overunity motor/generators etc etc..  folks have been wasting time (in my opinion) there now for a couple thousand years!

some folks do like discussing it though... and in most cases that can continue in the catagory.

And with all that said...  welcome to the board!  And thankyou for participating...

[perpetualthinker]

Hey,

   Ok I will try to cut down on the number of things I post. I only have like 2 questions left to ask.

Thanks for telling me I was causing a problem.<-(not to sound whine or complaining)

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

In particular:  Each semiconductor material has a conduction band a certain voltage above the non-conduction band.  A photon is absorbed pumping an electron up to the conduction band - and any extra is radiated away as a lower-energy photon.

So below a certain frequency the light won't generate anything.  And above it the excess energy is wasted.  The voltage out of the cell is the same regardless whether it's eating green, blue, or ultra-voilet.

Multilayer solar cells have several junctions stacked, starting with the highest bandgap material (to use the energetic photons efficiently and pass the lower-energy ones) and working down to lower-bandgap materials to pick off the redder light.  If you pick the bandgap stackup correctly you absorb the same count of photons in each layer (from typical sunlight color distributions), so you produce identical currents.  That way you can put the cells in series for easy connection.  (Current in this setup is limited by the layer producing the lowest current.)