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

You can make panels that work at other frequencies, but the bulk of the energy we get is in the visible spectrum. Our atmosphere is rather opaque to a broad range of infrared wavelengths, and the ozone layer only allows a portion of UV radiation through. Areas below infrared or above ultraviolet just don’t have enough irradiance to produce useful amounts of power.