A team from the University of New South Wales worked on the new device. A group of scientists has created a working prototype of a “night cell” that is technically the opposite of solar panels.

How does it work

• The technology, the concept of which emerged in 2014, It is called a “thermoradiation diode”.
• It uses the same PN junction principle in semiconductors, but works in the opposite direction.
• It is based on the fact that the entire space around us is filled with energy flows of various forms that can be blocked.
• For example, when sunlight illuminates the Earth’s surface during the day, it not only bombards it with photons, but also heats it.
• At night this excess heat is directed into cold space, which produces infrared radiation from the planet’s surface.
• It turns out that we can harvest the energy of our star both during the day and at night using different types of batteries.

Drawing of temperature differences. Thermal imaging camera shows amount of heat radiated back into atmosphere from Sydney Harbor and its surroundings at night / Photo from UNSW

thermoradiation diode It is built on the details from the solar panel and night vision goggles. It can block infrared radiation from any source, but its effectiveness depends on the temperature difference between the source and the diode.

This efficiency is not very high: at a temperature difference of 12.5 degrees Celsius, the electrical power density was only 1.8 percent of the power of the radiation itself.

However, calculations show that the power of such a battery can be increased – It can reach up to 10 percent of the parameters of a solar panel operating in the same region and in the same weather.

More importantly, the source of infrared radiation can be any heated object, such as a machine engine or a hot wall of a manufacturing plant. Even the human body radiates heat, often to no avail, so you can design special clothes that will collect this energy and charge small gadgets.