[sdiy] Eu might be banning Vactrols and LDRs??

[Aaron Lanterman]

On Sep 10, 2009, at 9:23 PM, Scott Nordlund wrote:

> A solar cell is basically a large diode, where a CdS photoresistor  
> is just a piece of semiconductor with no junction.  In both cases  
> the incident photons generate electron-hole pairs, but in a solar  
> cell the electrons and holes are separated by the electric field in  
> the junction's depletion region and travel to the cathode/anode,  
> thus producing a voltage potential.  In a photoresistor, the  
> electron-hole pairs just facilitate conduction (reducing resistance).


It's been a good, uhm, 18 or so years since I last looked at this  
device physics stuff, so this is probably a silly question, but...  
would be it possible to "hack" a solar cell to make it act as a  
photoresistor? Chop off part of it and attach some wires or something?

Just idly curious.

- Aaron