2 ms·
If the stored heat is on the level of getting the emitter into the white-hot, how is the "battery" turned off, to hold the "charge"? The article mentions a mir
by usrusr 5y ago
If the stored heat is on the level of getting the emitter into the white-hot, how is the "battery" turned off, to hold the "charge"?
The article mentions a mirror layer as part of the cell, for retaining the energy of out of band photons. Would that be the "off" solution, just bounce them back when they are not needed? Cell moved out of the path? Somehow that triggers "too simple to be true" heuristics in me, but on the other hand... yeah, mirrors (or just very white surfaces, precise direction is not needed) can be quite capable of not getting heated by incoming photons, and that must mean bouncing them back.
- karamazov 5y agoYou have a heat reservoir, i.e. a well-insulated and very hot object, that stores energy as heat. If you insulate it with mirrors, that can look like bouncing photons back into the reservoir. When you want to generate energy, you open the insulation and let heat out to hit this chip. It’s like opening an oven door to let some hot air out.
- BlueTemplar 5y agoBut the chips are placed on the gold mirror here - more likely is that they just sit idle until you connect the circuit ?