eli5: Do solar panels only work with sunlight, or can they be tuned to capture energy from other wavelengths outside the visible spectrum?

Question

eli5: Do solar panels only work with sunlight, or can they be tuned to capture energy from other wavelengths outside the visible spectrum?

In: 2876

Answer 1

Solar panel?
No, others have given the reasons why, but what you may be interested in is this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectenna

To my understanding, as long as the frequency of light is lower than the operating frequency of the diode it will convert any light into electricity

The only problem is cheap, mass produced diodes that can at most convert from microwave or far infrared…I think. I am rusty with this and not the most confident.

Edit 1: I Remembered a bit more.

For UV+Light, there is a way of generating power, (not solar panels sadly) which involves alternating thin conducting plates. As the photon goes through the plates they occasionally bump into the atoms (or even the electrons themselves for gamma) generating a very small, but somewhat usable, charge.

Also, there is a case where plants? turn radiation into energy

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotrophic_fungus
These fungi are one such case