A field of young sunflowers will slowly rotate from east to west during the course of a sunny day, each leaf seeking out as much sunlight as possible as the sun moves across the sky through an adaptation called heliotropism. It’s a clever bit of natural engineering that inspired imitation from an electrical and computer engineer, who has found a way to mimic the passive heliotropism seen in sunflowers for use in the next crop of solar power systems.
![]()
Sunflowers inspire more efficient solar power system
Last 5 posts in Science Updates
- Artificial forest for solar water-splitting: First fully integrated artificial photosynthesis nanosystem - May 16th, 2013
- Significant improvement in performance of solar-powered hydrogen generation - May 15th, 2013
- Solar panels as inexpensive as paint? - May 13th, 2013
- 'Power plants': How to harvest electricity directly from plants - May 9th, 2013
- Value in concentrating solar power to add to electric grid calculated - May 7th, 2013
Recent Solar Energy Comments