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Old 05-08-2009, 01:19 PM
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renormalised (Carl)
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PV cells mainly react to visible light, and since most of the light from the Sun falls in and around 560nm, then that is the light they're most sensitive to. But generally, it's just the visible light they react to. UV photons tend to knock electrons completely out of the PNP layers of the silicon cells, so their efficiency in this section of the spectrum is rather low. IR even less so, as it hasn't the energy required to create a potential difference across the layers, so no current flows.

There are new solar cell technologies being developed that can react to those areas of the spectrum outside the visible, such as near IR and UV, but they're not commercial viable as far as I know, yet.
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