Studies of the Wave Principles of the Conversion of Solar Radiation into Electricity as an Alternative to Space Solar Energy

Traditional photovoltaics has, as you know, disadvantages: low efficiency of typical solar panels and their high cost. Therefore, back in the 1970s, a radical decision was made to use not the quantum but the wave properties of light to convert solar radiation into electric current. For this purpose, it was planned to arrange on the panel an array of nano-antennas connected to rectifying devices. These proposals could not be implemented until recently, when the first successful promising results were obtained. In parallel and independently, research and development began actively to develop in order to obtain electric energy in space orbit and to transmit it to Earth with a powerful ultra-high frequency beam. But approximately in 2008, the rapid development of traditional terrestrial photovoltaics began. In the prospects of the space direction, doubts arose. The article attempts to compare the terrestrial and cosmic variants of solar energy with historical and technical means.