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audunw01/17/20252 repliesview on HN

But sunlight is wide spectrum, and a lot of the reasons why the efficiency of regular solar panels is low, is that they don’t absorb all of the spectrum equally well. That’s why there’s all this talk of tandem solar cells with perovskites these days. The two solar cells can be tuned to extract energy from different wavelengths of light.

Since the light they’re making is nearly monochromatic, it’s a lot easier to get higher efficiency. That’s kind of the whole point of the invention.


Replies

selimthegrim01/18/2025

Schottky solar cells are also a thing although their efficiency isn’t great either

DaniFong01/18/2025

well observed