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

Yes, but thankfully the earth’s magnetic field and ozone filter out the higher frequency radiation so it’s not worth it to design panels to capture those frequencies. Now satellite and the ISS are outside of the magnetic field and are exposed to all of the radiation from the sun so they can make panels that absorb all of the frequencies.