There's been plenty of good news about solar power lately - not only are governments around the world using it more and more, we're now able to harvest the Sun's energy more cheaply and efficiently than ever before. But there's still one big problem: traditional solar cells simply don't work that well unless they're in direct, bright sunlight.

To rectify this, researchers have been working on creating structures called black silicon solar cells, which absorb way more light and are useful even on overcast days. But they've never been efficient enough to be real players in the solar race - up until now, that is.

A team of European researchers has just announced that they've set a new record by creating black silicon solar cells that can convert 22.1 percent of the Sun's light into electricity - an increase of almost four percent on their previous record.