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

The thing is, nothing we have available is as bright as sunlight, in nearly any spectrum. The biggest source of infrared is the sun. The biggest source of ultraviolet is the sun. The biggest source of *neutrinos* is the sun.

Most research into other spectrums of solar panels are just to capture more energy from sunlight. If you’re thinking that switching spectrums might allow solar panels which can work at night, unfortunately at night there is just simply less energy available for that kind of capture.