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    Can Screens With Solar Cells Solve the Smartphone Battery Problem?

    By Stan Schroeder | Mashable – Fri, Jan 20, 2012

    Most modern smartphones have a problem - their battery simply doesn't last long enough, especially with heavy usage. As the smartphone screens get bigger and bigger, the battery drain increases, but now Arman Ahnood, a researcher at the London Centre for Nanotechnology, has an elegant solution: smartphone screens with built-in solar cells.

    According to Ahnood, only 36% of the light produced by an OLED display is projected out and the rest is wasted. This wasted light, which is scattered or "bleeding" from the edge of the display, can be harnessed with photovoltaic cells, built into the screen itself.

    [More from Mashable: Your Smartphone Is One Step Closer to Becoming Invincible]

    Ahnood's system currently has an efficiency of 11%, producing a total output of five miliwatts on a typical 3.7-inch device, which is far from what a smartphone needs. According to this research (PDF link), a typical smartphone uses up to several hundred miliwatts, and as much as 68.6 miliwatts in a suspended state.

    However, Ahnood believes the efficiency can be increased significantly, to the point where this system could extend battery life by a few hours.

    [More from Mashable: Cobra Wants You to Tag and Find Your Lost Stuff]

    To smartphone owners, which often call their devices "6 o'clock phones," since their battery only lasts until late afternoon with normal usage, these couple of hours could make a big difference.

    [via ExtremeTech]

    This story originally published on Mashable here.

     

    3 comments

    • Joe
      Joe  •  New York, New York  •  4 mths ago
      Cover the whole back of the device with solar panels.
    • A Yahoo! User  •  4 mths ago
      No. You just have to have a basic acquaintance with the problem to know that you can only recycle trivial amounts of energy that way.
    • AR-10
      AR-10  •  4 mths ago
      Very interesting. Science for the win.
     Post a comment
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