I have a question re: Solar Energy, if im right, I may have a brilliant idea

[Creativity]

We have found that we can use pulses of energy to power artificial lights and it uses a lot less energy. I am wondering how must energy can be retrieved from a pulsed light source? Any amount retrieved would add to the overall efficiency of the energy used.

that man's eye cannot see fast enough pulsing ,makes it to work just fine for light purposes(for example a common fly can see blinking of the TLC tube).Brain keeps an after image of light for some brief moment and "fills in" light gaps.Does a solar panel have man's eye property? i doubt it,but don't say it is impossible neither. I would expect the solar panel to deliver more power when under full light,rather than pulsed one. PV power is proportional to amount of photons it can catch,if u have less photons in pulsed light then it seams reasonable to compare it to a light of a lower intensity...or fast day-night cycles and everyone knows just how much electricity a PV is producing at night :|

PV seams to have a preffered light lenght range,so they will be most efficient under those lights conditions.Its like we cannot see infrared,so it doesn't matter for our eye .

[Steven Dufresne]

I wanted to know if there was something that can be used in lieu of the sun to charge a solar panel. Then how much energy would such a device use as opposed to the power it would create in the solar panel, would it be less, equal, or in some way greater then it?

Any store bought light that puts out the same wavelengths that the PV panels work with will do. But, there will be heat losses in the solar panel, then more losses in the wiring going from the PV panels back to the light. So the energy going back into the light would be less than the energy being put out by the light. You'd need an external source of energy to make up for the losses. And then you also want some extra energy out to power something else.

But then again, there's Owen P. Barker's solar harness that somehow used magnets to allegedly produce more power from solar panels. See US patent 5,009,243.
http://www.google.com/patents?id=K-EbAAAAEBAJ&dq=5009243
I did a quick and dirty test once with magnets, a solar cell and the sun but got no increace in output other than normal. But it was quick and dirty and hardly comprehensive. My guess was he was increasing the efficiency of the solar cells by using the magnetic fields to clean up the paths for the electrons to move in the cells, decreasing losses due to heat.

And i forgot to say thank you, that link you gave was very helpful.

You're welcome. I tried to make it simple and clear.
-Steve
http://rimstar.org

[PYRODIN123321]

Hello MrKrysis

I read this and had an idea, not sure if it is possible though.
we use solar panels to collect energy from the photons popping off the extra electron right?

I know that silicon is used in conjunction with phosphorus and boron for a basic panel.
could different elements higher in electrons, two extra electrons instead of one, maybe work for,say, ultraviolet or even gamma or beta radiation?

Why cant we do this for the whole electromagnetic spectrum?
Are  photons only for visible light or are they for the whole spectrum?

[Steven Dufresne]

I know that silicon is used in conjunction with phosphorus and boron for a basic panel.
could different elements higher in electrons, two extra electrons instead of one, maybe work for,say, ultraviolet or even gamma or beta radiation?

I recall reading a few times in the last year of someone finding a way to pop off more than one electron per photon.

Why cant we do this for the whole electromagnetic spectrum?
Are  photons only for visible light or are they for the whole spectrum?

The multijunction solar cells do just this. Silicon solar cells capture only a part of the visible spectrum but multijunction solar cells, such as Spectrolab's, capture more of the visible spectrum along with some of the infrared.
-Steve
http://rimstar.org

[MrKrysis]

It's really hard for me to explain much more of what im talking about without giving the whole thing away.

And i'll be perfectly honest with everyone, I knew very little about solar power/energy until yesterday when this idea popped into my head, and I began to research it.

Right from the beginning my I realized the energy output would probably be less then what was used to power the device charging it.

But i had a theory, even before I read about concentrated solar power, that if we used lenses of some sort, could we perhaps magnify the power? Could we take a small amount of light/heat and somehow amplify the intake to be greater then the output?

Of course doing so would increase the overall production cost, but in the long run I think it would save money, if applied to.... well you know what, i pretty much did give away my whole idea already.

My idea basically is that we could create power, that produces itself. By using solar panels, we could charge an energy source to charge the solar panels. 

and that in itself would be a perpetual energy device would it not? Well maybe not entirely, because the initial start of the machine would take another energy source. If this is at all possible though, it could be applied to all kinds of technology the world over.

and now because Im bad at keeping secrets my idea is out there, and someone else will probably go forth and utilize it and take all the credit, haha.