Solar Energy Light Spectrum

Light emitting diodes made of indium gallium nitride held clues to the potential new solar cell material.

Solar energy light spectrum.

The solar irradiance is measured in watt per square metre w m 2 in si units solar irradiance is often integrated over a given time period in order to report the radiant energy emitted into the surrounding environment. O 3 absorbs a little of the. The human eye can only detect only a small portion of this spectrum called visible light. The spectrum of the sun s solar radiation is close to that of a black body with a temperature of about 5 800 k.

What is electromagnetic energy. Electromagnetic energy travels in waves and spans a broad spectrum from very long radio waves to very short gamma rays. We can tell this by doing a quick integration. The sun emits em radiation across most of the electromagnetic spectrum although the sun produces gamma rays as a result of the nuclear fusion process internal absorption and thermalization convert these super high energy photons to lower energy photons before they reach the sun s.

A radio detects a different portion of the spectrum and an x ray machine uses yet another portion. Light from 400 700 nanometers nm is called visible light or the visible spectrum because humans can see it light outside of this range may be visible to other organisms but cannot be perceived by the human eye. About half of the energy is in the visible wavelengths below 0 7 μm. Red light leds have been familiar for decades but it was only in the 1990s that a new generation of wide band gap leds emerged capable of radiating light at the blue end of the spectrum.

A team of researchers from george washington university has devised a new layered solar panel that can absorb light from a wider range of the spectrum pushing the efficiency as high as 44 5 percent. Note the following for the solar spectrum. Visible light from a human perspective is less than half the sun s total output. The human eye sees color over wavelengths ranging roughly from 400 nanometers violet to 700 nanometers red.

About 70 of the visible irradiance makes it all the way to sea level. Solar irradiance is the power per unit area received from the sun in the form of electromagnetic radiation as reported in the wavelength range of the measuring instrument.