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Optimizing the conversion of solar energy to electricity is central to the World's future energy economy. Flat photovoltaic panels are commonly deployed in residential and commercial rooftop installations without sun tracking systems and using simple installation guidelines to optimize solar energy collection. Large-scale solar energy generation plants use bulky and expensive sun trackers to avoid cosine losses from photovoltaic panels or to concentrate sunlight with mirrors onto heating fluids.[1,2] However, none of these systems take advantage of the three-dimensional nature of our biosphere, so that solar energy collection largely occurs on flat structures in contrast with what is commonly observed in Nature.[3,4] Here we formulate, solve computationally and study experimentally the...