Increase solar energy efficiency

Chinese experts use small-sized processing machines to make almost completely flat Fresnel lenses, capable of increasing the efficiency of solar panels.

In the early 19th century, engineer - French physicist Augustin - Jean Fresnel was the inventor of the Fresnel lens. This lens features similar ordinary double-sided optical lenses.

However, in a Fresnel lens, the tip of the concentric circle focuses light on a point behind the lens. Fresnel lenses consist of concentric circles, sometimes light does not converge in the concentric circle peaks, so the depth of the lens is significantly reduced compared to a standard convex lens, the image quality through Fresnel glasses are usually not high. Therefore, experts often restrict the use of Fresnel lenses when they want to take photos without wanting to ignore the fine details.

Most recently, Fresnel lenses are used as car rearview mirrors, allowing operators to observe the rear of the car with wider angles. In addition, Fresnel lenses are also used as a cheap, portable magnifying glass to meet the needs of the visually impaired.

In the field of solar energy extraction, experts have been working hard to study the use of parabolic technology with bulky and heavy designs to increase capacity.

Currently, three experts Y.Cheng, XDZhang and GXZhang belong to the State Laboratory for Precision Measuring Instruments and Technology - Tianjin University (China), together develop a new technology, allowing constructing the necessary surface structures on Fresnel lenses, including a series of microscopic cones that are not the peaks of concentric circles, so that incident light rays will converge at one point with the main depth more accurate on the active layer of solar panels.

The initial experiment with precision-machined Fresnel solar collectors showed that the peak power achieved is 4 times higher than the capacity of conventional solar panels.