14 DAY TRIAL // The United States Patent and Trademark Office has published an Apple patent dubbed “Integrated touch sensor and solar assembly,” which relates to integrated touch sensor array and solar cell stack-ups. Apple seems to have found a way to integrate a solar array that doesn’t necessarily require direct sunlight.
The company seems dead serious about delivering a self-sustainable iPhone one of these days, and it might begin with a version that uses integrated solar arrays that catch their sunlight with the help of fiber optics.
This way the array doesn’t necessarily have to be on the outside of the phone (or at least to face upwards from the chassis), and Apple even has a solution to keep the device as thin as possible.
As usual, to make a good idea of what the invention holds in store, we can take a look at the patent abstract and see the idea as a whole (reproduced below from the USPTO web site).
“Integrated touch sensor and solar panel stack-up configurations that may be used on portable devices, particularly handheld portable devices such as a media player or phone are disclosed. The solar cell stack-up configurations may include one or more touch sensor layers and one or more solar cell layers.”
“By integrating both the touch sensors and the solar cell layers into the same stack-up, surface area on the portable device may be conserved. The solar panel may be mounted face down or otherwise obstructed by a touch sensor or other component. In this configuration, the device may include light channels that allow light into the device and direct the light around the component and to the solar panel. A parabolic reflector may be used to direct the light.”
Those light channels are just one way Apple proposes to conduct light beams to the solar panels. In one embodiment of the invention, the Cupertino behemoth specifically mentions optical fiber as means of grabbing light and routing it to the phone’s innards.
“Light piping such as fiber optics or a mirror assembly may alternatively be used to direct light to the solar panel within the device and around the LCD screen or other component,” the filing reads.
Editor’s note This is not stated in the patent description, but Apple could place optical fiber threads less than 1 millimeter long facing upwards (vertically) across the phone’s entire back shell, or even portions of the front and the sides, rigged to conduct light to a solar panel strapped back-to-back with the phone’s case. Any Apple staffer reading this is welcome to add me to the list of contributing inventors.