Submission + - Power Your House With The Sides of Your Windows (physorg.com)
brianerst writes: "Researchers at MIT have developed a technique to route and concentrate the light that hits a glass pane to its edges. Solar cells only need to be placed along the edges, leading to fewer cells operating at higher efficiency.
Because the system is simple to manufacture, the team believes that it could be implemented within three years — even added onto existing solar-panel systems to increase their efficiency by 50 percent for minimal additional cost. That, in turn, would substantially reduce the cost of solar electricity.
They use thin films of dye to funnel specific wavelengths of light to the edges, making them glow brightly. Heck, I want the coatings on my iPhone just for the cool passive glowing effect. It beats double-shot plastic by a mile!"
