• Question: What is the latest Solar Panel you have invented?

    Asked by anon-271395 on 3 Dec 2020.
    • Photo: Alex Ramadan

      Alex Ramadan answered on 3 Dec 2020:


      I wouldn’t say I’ve invented a solar panel – to me invented means I’ve come up with a completely new idea, but I’ve definitely made some new types of solar panels.

      I work on a type of material called perovskites and even though we’ve known about these materials for a long time we’ve only recently (last 10 years) started putting them into solar panels. The solar panels I work on at the moment make electricity out of light from the sun which is closer to the infra-red side. This is the light which makes you feel warm when you’re outside. My solar panels use the light we can see (visible light) and a bit of this invisible light (infra-red).

      The sun gives off lots of different types of light, some of which we can’t see with our eyes like infra-red light and scientists like me are trying to make sure we make solar panels which can use all of these different types of light to make electricity. This will make our solar panels better at turning light into electricity and overall make them cheaper for everyone.

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