@hyphen @matrix If I understand the paper correctly, it's not that you can make a blu-ray into a solar cell, it's that someone found the land/pit pattern on the discs makes a good light trap for existing technologies.

Quote from the whitepaper:
"As a proof-of-concept, imprinting polymer solar cells with the Blu-ray patterns indeed increases their efficiencies. "


https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms6517

@comradeagle @matrix what i meant is the diy cell you make by wrapping a cd with copper wire, only. This is an interesting iteration on the concept though.
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@hyphen @matrix I can't see how that would work, solar cells rely on electrons that can be easily knocked out of their orbits by light., and a CD is just polycarbonate and aluminum (or with Cyanine dye...) Polycarbonate doesn't do that, AFAIK.


Is there a white paper on that one?

@comradeagle @matrix not a white paper that i found, only a bunch of yt videos that can't possibly coordinate fake info.
i am just as puzzled as you are cause i understand the principle of solar cells but can't really tell how it applies here.

https://youtu.be/Iix7TxquHR8
https://youtu.be/C9pUTeqGcRE
https://youtu.be/3jvI27Yor-k

i kinda speedwatched those. volume off. so maybe the answer is in there.

@comradeagle @matrix ...maybe it's heat rather than photons?

@hyphen @matrix

I'll take a look at those tonight, but what I know about the materials just doesn't support that kind of output. Solar cells are amorphous or crystalline silicon, or in some older cases, selenium - but that only provides tiny currents for meters.

@comradeagle @matrix the videos claim around 10 volts i believe

@hyphen @matrix

Never mind, I took a look - there are plenty of videos on youtube where someone claims to take a motor and some magnets and wire and make a self-running electric system, in violation of the laws of conservation of energy and friction.

In the second video you linked, the fan starts before the guy takes his hand off the "cell," and notice you never see the complete system. There are wires going off into the ether.

@hyphen @matrix The only way I can see making electric from a CD would be to use it (the CD) as a concentrator and focus it on a peltier junction of some sort.

@hyphen @matrix Or on photodiodes. But those are essentially mini silicon solar cells.

@comradeagle @matrix hm, I'll have to look into this more and see if it really is just one of those fake 5-minute hack videos. But with the shitty way they're captured on a potato camera I can't help but see some authenticity in it.
shame i don't have a cd and a copper wire at hand.

@hyphen I can't see it being real. Those perpetual energy videos are usually potato as well. @matrix

@hyphen @matrix Here's another one, only this guy claims that magnets are also needed.

Notice his meter is on 200mV and he's constantly holding on to the leads and rolling them around in his fingers. Guess what that makes your meter do?

@hyphen @matrix https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3Hlc8CW1z4