A collaboration that includes a University of Missouri engineering professor is aiming to revolutionize how solar energy is collected and converted into electricity.
Tapping solar energy now relies on photovoltaic panels, but that technology can take advantage of only about one-third of the radiation spectrum in sunlight.
But the research group that includes MU is taking a different approach that uses 90 percent of the spectrum, by using tiny antennas in paper-thin film. The approach is still in development, but the group is far enough along in the work, which began in 2005, that its members are confident it will perform as expected and eventually be commercially successful.
