Posted on 07/23/2003 6:47:38 AM PDT by hripka
A group of Sandia National Laboratories scientists have accidentally tripped, and broken the laws of physics.
While improving a labs-developed energy technology, scientists Shawn Lin, Jim Bur and Jim Fleming discovered that they had made the technology so efficient that it crashed through the walls of a century-old physics law called Planck's Law of Blackbody Cavity Radiation.
The technology - called a tungsten photonic lattice - and its stunning new properties in the next year could lead to solar cells and batteries that are from four to 10 times more efficient than today's, Lin said.
"We were just making an energy filter, and we stumbled across the fact that the filter was much more efficient than it was supposed to be," Fleming said. "Scientifically, this discovery is sort of odd. We came across something we didn't expect while doing our experiment. Now we're struggling to figure out the science behind it."
The law the scientists broke was created by Max Planck, an early physics pioneer. The law predicts the maximum amount of energy that can come from an ideal solid material. That number has to be a whole number multiple of the energy frequency that the material is emitting.
The Sandia scientists exceeded Planck's energy prediction of the maximum amount of energy that can come from any solid material by four to 10 times, using the lattice structure.
"Planck made a lot of assumptions and probably wasn't thinking about tungsten," Lin said, quietly apologizing for Planck. "We need to go back to his basic assumptions and challenge them one at a time. They need to be tweaked, but I don't believe we broke his law. I think we modified it."
The lattice is shaped like a very tiny cage - with triangular bars about the size of a red blood cell - that traps the light and heat from solar radiation and filters it into usable energy. The cage holds in certain types of energy, while letting others out. The energy inside bounces around and becomes a very powerful fuel or light source, the scientists say.
"We're still trying to figure out why this works the way it works," Fleming said. "We can see this is a good thing to develop and understand. It increases our knowledge and is a useful technology. But it will probably be a long time before we have all the theories we need to understand it."
In the meantime, there is plenty of work developing the technology for practical uses, Fleming said.
Right now, solar cells can convert only between 5 percent and 10 percent of all the radiation that hits them into usable energy. By creating a filter out of this law-breaking material, new solar cells will be able to convert between 25 and 35 percent of that radiation, Lin said.
"It's kind of like tuning a radio," Lin said. "Sunlight has many different frequencies - visible light, infrared light, ultraviolet light, X-ray. We can only see and use a small amount of that, and nature doesn't let us tune into the rest. What we've shown with this technology is we can not only funnel energy from those frequencies, but we can also tune into different ones by changing the size of the lattice."
The scientists created lattices small enough to collect near-infrared light, the main energy source for solar cells. Because it's so efficient, however, the technology will help companies make new solar cells that could lead to solar batteries that last 10 times longer, or hybrid cars that use fuel much more efficiently than the 50 mile per gallon modern hybrids, Lin said.
Down the line, the team hopes to build an even smaller lattice, one that can filter and trap visible light. Because the lattice can collect a specific energy type while letting others go, a smaller lattice could be designed to trap only visible light, without trapping heat. That could lead to a highly efficient light bulb that remains cold to the touch even after being on for an entire day, Lin said.
"We have the size we need now to start working on solar cells," Lin said. "The next stage - the one we could use for lighting - isn't entirely up to us. Sandia doesn't have the facilities to make the size we need, but IBM, Intel and Motorola do, or will in the next 12 months. It's possible we could make a partnership and work with one of those to get to the next stage."
I wasn't aware that physicists were actually capable of creating the laws of nature.
So9
In the satellite world, for example, you could get close to 3x the energy from a comparable-sized solar array, or the same amount from a much smaller array. This would lead, probably, to much smaller and cheaper satellites.
Note also that if you can do the lattice right, this would make a very nice, and extremely sensitive antenna -- again probably making for smaller, cheaper satellites.
What is a "solar battery" and how--precisely--does it differ from a, um, battery?
--Boris
You probably need an adapter. Ain't technology grand?
They aren't. "Discover" is the more appropriate verb to choose.
But nowadays, it's difficult enough to find journalists who know how to spell, let alone understand scientific concepts.
Actually, improved solar efficiency poses a greater threat to the oil industry.
Robert Zoellick will probably transfer the technology to the Chicoms for application development and implementation.
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