Typical solar cells made of silicon miss out on a wide swath of energy shining from the sun.

But according to calculations made by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and China's Peking University and Xi'an Jiaotong University, poking a sheet of material just a molecule thin changes the material's atomic structure and improves its ability to harvest a broader spectrum of sunlight.

Conventional solar panels made of crystalline silicon are most sensitive to wavelengths of sunlight in the red end of the  visible range or the near-infrared. Panels made of amorphous silicon are more sensitive to wavelengths of light in the blue range.

But the sun's peak wavelength is in the green part of the spectrum. Photons (light particles) from that wavelength of light do the best job at hitting atoms inside solar panels and knocking out the electrons that ultimately generate an electric current. If solar panels could be tuned to harvest a larger spectrum of sunlight, they'd generate more electricity and be more efficient.