George Cove, a forgotten solar power pioneer, may have built a highly efficient photovoltaic panel 40 years before Bell Labs engineers invented silicon cells. If proven to work, his design could lead to less complex and more sustainable solar panels.
  • PlaidBaron@lemmy.world
    15·
    1 year ago

    I love Low Tech magazine. Half their articles are horribly impractical or not very well thought out but I genuinely still love it.

    • PegasusAssistant@lemm.ee
      2·
      1 year ago

      So, thermocouples are commonly used in industry to make temperature probes, typically in the form of a coil of wire containing two conductors of different metals. I wonder if it’d be possible to get ahold of some thermocouple wire and put together a solar cell at home?

  • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net
    3·
    1 year ago

    This is such a wickedly interesting article, I had no idea there was a totally different method of solar technology like this. Very strange that there hasn’t been more widely known research in this area, or more home-built attempts. Crazy that they were eventually able to achieve 17% efficiency.

    Thanks for sharing this article!