The nanowire solar cell

The nanowire solar cell (left) is just 0.4 x 10 micrometers (millionths of a meter) in size. To measure exactly how much light the solar cell absorbs, a setup is needed that detects all of the light the nanowire does not absorb. The researchers developed a new method for this in which an 'integrating sphere' detects all of the scattered and transmitted light (right, a cut-out of the integrating sphere is shown).