Can Solar Panels Be Created Into The Form Of A Wire Instead Of A Flat Panel?
Sep 30, 2009 in
diy
in other words is it possible to form a solar panel in a thick wire?
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4 comments
tmac5445 on September 30, 2009 at 9:13 pm
It needs the surface area. If a wire was used you would need panels to focus the light on the wire so no space is saved.
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Barkley Hound on September 30, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Sure. Recently it has been done experimentally. http://www.technologyreview.com/Nanotech…
Personally I don’t reckon this is as useful as the inventors claim.
As for thick wires… I don’t see a geometric advantage of making a wire. Solar cells do not like to be illuminated unevenly and a wire is kind of a guarantee for uneven explanation. I can’t quite presume an application which would absolutely need a wire and couldn’t be done any other way.
As a curiosity, solar wires will certainly stick around. As a matter-of-fact application… probably not so much.
That’s just my two cents.
amanssci on September 30, 2009 at 9:56 pm
a solar cell is basically ohmic contacts to semiconductor material. forming it as a wire gives you very small area for incident light, hence such construction would be impractical and inefficient.
it has to be at least wide enough so that the top metal doesn’t block light from entering the semiconductor material.
Tammi D on September 30, 2009 at 10:37 pm
There’s no reason why a material built as a sheet couldn’t be built as just a very very narrow sheet and be like a wire, but why would you want to? Key to the effectiveness of solar power is how much light they can capture and then make use of, which is multiplied by a factor proportional to width in a rectangle or whatever. Area is excellent.