"A simple, single nanowire crystal is capable of super-concentrating the intensity of the sunlight that it is exposed to up to a factor of 15, researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute have discovered. The surprising discovery means that the assumed limit to solar cell efficiency, the “Shockley-Queisser Limit,” can likely be increased. The discovery should lead to new types of high-efficiency solar cells, but also will have uses in potential quantum computers and other electronics, the researchers say."
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the ultimate will be to combine this technology with the recently posted graphene super capacitors but to actually construct the airframe itself from a combination of solar cell and graphene (rather than sticking them on afterwards).
This should make it possible to construct a UAV with an unlimited flight time, the solar cell running and charging the craft during the day and the graphene powering it overnight.
Really inexpensive high capacity solar cells will change everything.
Unfortunately look at how we have treated them.
Chinese Solar cells were getting really cheap, so, ostensibly our government came down on China for dumping them and imposed a big tariff, ostensibly to support our Solar cell industry.
Yeah, I know what solar cell industry, our companies had already shipped all their production to - - wait for it - China.
So, why, really why? Well all the US power companies represent a huge monopoly on energy and cheap solar cells threaten that monopoly.
PG&E is not your friend.
So what will happen with the above technology, PG&E or their equivalent will buy it and bury it, just like Thorium reactors.
Up the System!
Great! This is the kind of stuff that might not seem that important at first, but could very well end up changing the world as we know it.
That's really great ! would certainly lead to solar power UAV's with with much smaller wing area as compared to what is being used now a days. It will bring revolution !