Can a solar panel detect laser light outdoors during the day?

Question

Can a solar panel detect laser light from a consumer laser pointer when it is placed outdoors during the day?

Answer 1

Probably not. The sun at its strongest puts out 1100 W/m^2. The typical red laser pointer puts out a maximum of 5 mW. Because the collecting areas of the solar cells within the panel are so large, the signal from the laser will be swamped but the sunlight.

Some people are confused about the operation of solar cells. They operate in the same visible band as red laser pointers, therefore, they will detect laser pointers under dark conditions. However, being strapped into a full panel will degrade the response quite a bit, but a small panel or a single cell should still respond to laser light.

Answer 2

Solar panels do not detect usually lasers. Actually they are not made to detect light, but to use it on generating continuous electrical current (c.c).That's all.

For light detection there's plenty of devices and equipments used in industry and security of companies and private homes, called photo-diodes, photo-transistors,etc.
They are specialized little devices which have a grain of special made silicon crystal. I say, "special" because is doped with some other atoms than silicon, which makes it a semi conductor. The light of a certain spectrum makes it to be electrical conductive and let some (or all) current to pass through the crystal to close a circuit, and tell you that there's light of that certain spectrum (even LASER which is a very narrow spectrum of light).

Just remember in the movies when some burglars used to detect LASERs from a surveyed room with a mist or something like, and when interrupted this sets on the alarm--the laser beams (like your pointer) are displaced in that way that a LASER emitter is pointed exactly on a LASER detector so they close an electrical circuit.
Best wishes:)

Answer 3

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