Supercomputing more light than heat

Solar cells can’t stand the heat. Photovoltaics lose some energy as heat in converting sunlight to electricity. The reverse holds true for lights made with light-emitting diodes (LED), which convert electricity into light. Some scientists think there might be light at the end of the tunnel in the hunt for better semiconductor materials for solar cells and LEDs, thanks to supercomputer simulations that leveraged graphics processing units to model nanocrystals of silicon.