question about solar panels....?

Question

do solar panels create electricity from the ultraviolet light created from the sun? because they only have an efficientcy of like 18% and this scientist found out a way to collect the visible light also, and he says the solar panel could have an effeciency of up to 80%! so my question really is, do solar penels creat electricity from heat? do you know of anything that can?

Answer 1

Not many people realise it, but Einstein did not win the Nobel Prize for either Theory of Relativity. He was awarded the prize for his work on the photoelectric effect. i.e. the ability of some materials to take photons of light and turn their energy into electricity. Now, since most of the Sun's UV rays are filtered out by the Earth's atmosphere, else we'd be able to get a sunburn in seconds walking around outside in daylight, I think there is some energy imparted to the solar cells by UV wavelengths of light, but most solar cell materials rely on the wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation we call visible. Plus, I always thought infrared wavelengths conveyed more heat energy than UV rays.

Answer 2

Solar panels create a current from light. A photon strikes a crystal lattice and anelectron is freed and flows as a current

Answer 3

1

Answer 4

They create electricity from light energy provided by the sun....

See here-:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_photovoltaic_array