

Surprising effect of light could change solar power generation - merijn481
http://smartenergyshow.wordpress.com/2011/05/06/surprising-effect-of-light-could-change-solar-power-generation/

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dhs
Source paper: “Optically-induced charge separation and terahertz emission in
unbiased dielectrics”
[http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&v...](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCkQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.eecs.umich.edu%2F~scr%2FFisherJAP2011.pdf&rct=j&q=%E2%80%9COptically-
induced%20charge%20separation%20and%20terahertz%20emission%20in%20unbiased%20dielectrics%E2%80%9D&ei=g6vTTeiFG8_Tsga3mv3dAg&usg=AFQjCNHhDNA0v13PZ-
bzYTGjzH_ksOUicA&cad=rja)

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jerf
This doesn't actually sound promising at all to me for solar power generation.
In the original press release [1] they _speculate_ that they may _eventually_
reach 10% efficiency, which we _already have_. Given that the effect requires
stupefyingly absurd amounts of light and that they're going to have to improve
by _several_ orders of magnitude to harness this effect to do real work
without causing the medium to explode due to a sudden influx of a huge amount
of light, all to obtain an efficiency we already can, I do not see this as
likely to be useful for solar power generation.

I criticize the need to try to attach every bit of research to the buzzword
_de jour_. This is legitimately interesting on its own and the odds of it
having some further use either scientifically or for some other engineering
purpose is quite good. They've established a new boundary condition on some
very venerable equations, which can't hardly help but be useful at some point.
Tenuous connections to an application that it probably won't be useful for
weaken the point, not strengthen it.

[1]: <http://ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=8368>

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dhimes
The authors argue that, in a dielectric medium, light can induce an electric
dipole moment _in the direction of the light propagation_ by shifting the
average location of atomic electrons in that direction. This moment becomes a
means of storing energy, and they expect that heat loss would be much less
than in traditional semiconductor solar cells.

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dylanrw
Is it just me or does the Smart Energy Show logo look like:
[http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a56/Billy2600/512px-
Apertur...](http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a56/Billy2600/512px-
Aperture_Sciencesvg.png) :D

