Norwich, England -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/16/2014 -- Harnessing the sun's power with today's technological advancement to bring it closer to every home becomes the lifelong mission of numerous engineers and scientists in search of a sustainable alternative power that the whole world will be needing; for natural resources are scarce and the needs of man is infinite.

The rise of numerous solar panel manufacturers and the umber of people switching to go solar could be the dawn of energy-saving for many who strongly believe on the efficiency and capability of solar panels to supply the energy needed (which many providers fail to allocate due to extreme shortage that the international market is experiencing). Yearly price hikes on electricity and gas have probably caught everyone's nerve for its domino-like effect on their budget that the government introduced an alternative by offering incentives for each solar panel installed and energy saved. Thus, people could make a profit out of it while saving 50% of expenses from paying pricey energy bills.

Moreover, tremendous efforts were made for the growth of solar industry to promote cleaner, more sustainable energy in the future, making the cost of solar panels to drop significantly over the past few years. The Energy Department has committed to leverage the abundant solar energy resources thru driving research, manufacturing, and market solutions to support the widespread expansion of the nation's solar market. However, continuous research and study is needed to further develop the utilization of solar panels.

Until recently, new ways to improve the efficiency of solar panels in trapping the photons in the visible light and near infrared spectrum was discovered by researchers at Northwestern University. It is through the blu-ray disc of Jackie Chan's influential Police Story 3: Super Cop that would increase the efficiency of solar panels by 22%.

A typical laser disc, like CDs and DVDs, that consist of a thin layer serve as a recording medium that are sandwiched between two bits of plastics. Data is stored on a medium that contains series of pits with small indentations which is about 75nm long. And to read the data, a laser is bounced off the recording medium (which is smooth and untouched, referred as islands) and bounces straight back into a sensor where the laser is reflected differently. Hence, a binary data can be stored and read.

As for the case of the blu-ray disc, compression is applied and error control codes were added on the binary data to be able to retrieve it in case of scratches. The error control codes applied on every few bytes resulted to a disc covered in quasi-random pits and islands that have persistent pattern caused by iridescence of optical disc (every 150 to 525nm).

What makes the solar cells found in solar panels aren't as efficient as it seems, is that many photons simply reflect off the panel rather than converting them into electrons. On the other hand, when the researchers at Northwestern removed the top plastic layer of the Jackie Chan blu-ray disc, exposing the recording medium beneath, it casted a mold of the quasi-random pattern. The mold was then used to create a photovoltaic cell with the pattern and the end result is a solar panel with a quantum efficiency around 40% - up about 22% from the non-patterned solar panel. Therefore, the nano-patterning increased the solar panel's absorption and competence across the entire range of 400 to 700nm wavelengths that is visible to near infrared.

Getsolarprices.com believes that the discovery of the relationship of nano-patterning in increasing the solar panel efficiency to absorb the photons in the visible light and a near infrared spectrum by 22% is true evidence that energy from the sun can in fact be harnessed and be maximized for upcoming use. However, such discovery should not impede people in search of more alternative options that will be helpful to achieve a cleaner sustainable living; for the earth's natural resources is gradually diminishing.

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