Solar keeps pushing ahead, and that's good news.
Rooftop solar panels use silicon to convert light into electricity. But their efficiency declines rapidly at higher temperatures. An either/or choice presents itself — but Stanford researchers found that a cesium coating allowed semiconducting materials to convert both light and heat into energy.
They dubbed the process PETE, for photon enhanced thermionic emission. And, PETE devices could be cheaply and easily incorporated into existing solar collection systems.
Also. PETE devices require only a small amount of semiconducting material, making them cheap. The hope is to design devices that can easily be bolted on to existing solar collection systems, so that conversion would also be low-cost. When used with the heat-conversion process, PETE devices could reach 60 percent efficiency. Isn't that something?
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