Waste light captured from a mobile could charge its battery

25th January 2012

A team from Cambridge University hopes to capture energy from organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) inside a phone by using thin-film photovoltaic (PV) cells built into the screen. Only 30–40 per cent of light generated by OLEDs is projected out of the front of the average mobile phone screen, with much of it being lost through the edges of the OLED. The researchers have created a proof-of-concept device that can harness this wasted light using PV cells around the edges of the display. The team believes that the captured photons could be used to help charge the phone and, because the technology can capture ambient light as well, it could one day lead to a phone that never has to be plugged in.

Read the complete article published by The Engineer, 25 January 2012