What if you never had to charge your devices again?

After decades of trying, consumer electronics companies are rolling out solar technology that mimics the photosynthesis process in plants. It allows devices to charge indoors and, in some cases, can eliminate batteries altogether.

This new light-harvesting technology is fundamentally different from the silicon-based crystalline panels installed on rooftops and in solar farms, as well as from the amorphous silicon cells found in the once ubiquitous solar-powered calculators. This new technology is based on principles first discovered by chemists in the 1960s, and turned into viable solar cells in the 1980s. It has taken until now for versions of these cells powerful enough for consumer applications to be manufactured at the scale required for mainstream adoption.