Question

What type of mirror is used in solar cookers and why?

Answer 1

The mirror used in solar cookers:

In solar cookers, we use concave mirrors.

The reason behind using this mirror:

1. Concave mirrors reflect light falling on it to a single focal point.
2. So the concave mirror used in solar cookers absorbs all the incident sunlight and reflects it to a single focal point.
3. The radiation at the focal point is very powerful as it contains a lot of concentrated thermal energy.
4. Now when we place a cooking pot on the focal point where the light is concentrated the energy is powerful enough to cook food.
5. Other mirrors like convex mirrors and plane mirrors can not be used in solar cookers as they do not have a focal point, so we can not concentrate the energy.

Hence, we use concave mirrors in solar cookers.