Renewable energy is becoming more important to curb climate change, and solar power generation using solar panels is also attracting attention. A research team at Stanford University has developed a device that triples the “ability to collect light” of such solar panels.
Immersion graded index optics: theory, design, and prototypes | Microsystems & Nanoengineering
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41378-022-00377-z
New optical device could help solar arrays focus light, even under clouds | Stanford News
https://news.stanford.edu/2022/06/27/new-optical-device-help-solar-arrays-focus-light-even-clouds/
Solar panels convert the energy of sunlight into electric power, but when the angle of sunlight changes, the amount of power generated changes significantly. To solve this problem, solar panels with “a function to automatically adjust the angle of the solar panel according to the angle of the sun” are also on sale, but solar panels with an angle adjustment function have manufacturing costs and maintenance. There is also the problem of increasing.
The research team has developed a device that deflects and concentrates the sun in order to realize a photovoltaic system that can efficiently convert sunlight into power without changing the angle of the solar panel. When I hear “concentrate sunlight”, I think of a lens with a structure like a magnifying glass, but such a lens cannot respond to changes in the angle of the sun. Therefore, the research team piled up glasses and polymers with different refractive indexes, and made a lens shaped like an inverted pyramid.Axially Graded Index Lens(AGILE)“is created.
AGILE can refract light that hits any surface and concentrate it on the bottom surface. Therefore, AGILE exposed to light looks dark.
According to the research team, light gathers on the bottom of AGILE three times more than usual. The research team claims that by arranging AGILE on a solar panel, a lot of light can be converted into electric power from morning to sunset regardless of the angle of the sun.
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