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Light sensor achieves “magically” high efficiency of 200%

2 pointsby mrintegrityover 2 years ago

2 comments

gus_massaover 2 years ago
Note that (as the article explain in the middle, this is NOT a magical 200% efficiency in the energy to energy conversion, Joule to Joule, KwH to KWH, or whatever unit you want. A solar panel has a 15%-20% efficiency in the energy to energy conversion.<p>Following the ideas of the photovoltaic effect (and more generally quantum mechanics), each photon produce usually should produce only one electron. This is not a hard rule, sometimes you waste photons and get no electrons, sometimes a single photon can produce more than one electron if it is very energetic. So, they have a not magical 200% &quot;efficiency&quot; in the photon to electron conversion, each photon produce in average two electrons. This may be interesting in some applications, but it&#x27;s not magical.<p>There are other device that have more than 100% &quot;efficiency&quot; in the photon to electron conversion. For example <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Photomultiplier_tube" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Photomultiplier_tube</a> but they use high voltage, so perhaps the new invention is easier to build an maintain.<p>Note that &quot;efficiency&quot; or &quot;quantum efficiency&quot; is the correct term in that area of physics. The problem is when the press release tries to be confusing and adds Harry Potter to increase clickbaitness.
mrintegrityover 2 years ago
Could this be another step towards Star Trek style tricorders?