eli5: Do solar panels only work with sunlight, or can they be tuned to capture energy from other wavelengths outside the visible spectrum?
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Yes and no.
When a photon hits an electron, if the photon has the right amount of energy, then the electron absorbs the photon and its energy and it can “jump” to a higher energy level (essentially allow it to orbit faster, farther away from the atom’s nucleus). With enough energy, the electron can completely leave the atom, a process called ionization (because when it leaves, the atom becomes a positively charged ion).
In the photovoltaic effect, this effect is exploited to get electrons to leave their atoms and be re-captured by a different material. The migration of electrons creates a charge difference between the two materials allowing current to flow.
Different materials have different wavelengths that work best, which means that a typical panel is made to capture whatever wavelengths are most abundant, particularly visible light.
UV wavelengths are higher energy than visible light, but there’s less UV than visible light. I believe there are multi-layer panel designs that are already commercially available that are able to capture additional wavelengths like UV.
So no, a particular material is going to have only some wavelengths that work for it.
But yes, because there are different materials and manufacturing techniques that allow us to absorb energy from other wavelengths.
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