Optical Battery Discovery Could Mean Solar Power Without Solar Cells...

Optical Battery Discovery Could Mean Solar Power Without Solar Cells...

 

 

From EarthTechling's Caleb Denison:
Researchers at the University of Michigan have made a scientific discovery that is intriguing all on its own but it is the breakthrough’s potential applications in solar power generation that have them excited.

According to Stephen Rand, a professor at the university and author of the paper that discusses his team’s discovery in the “Journal of Applied Physics”, the researchers found a way to make an “optical battery” which harnesses the magnetic attributes in light that, until now, scientists didn’t think amounted to much of anything.

The report explains that light has both electric and magnetic components but, until now, scientists believed the magnetic field effects were weak enough that they could be ignored. Rand and his fellow researchers, however, found that at the right intensity, when light is traveling through a material that does not conduct electricity, the light field can generate magnetic effects that are 100 million times stronger than thought possible. Under these circumstances, says Rand, the magnetic fields become similar in strength to a strong electric effect.

William Fisher, a doctoral student in applied physics, says that what makes this possible is “a previously undetected brand of “optical rectification.” In traditional optical rectification, light’s electric field causes positive and negative charges to be pulled apart in a material. That sets up voltage, similar to a battery.

Read more here:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/29/optical-battery-discovery-solar_n_855499.html

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Rare meteorite impact crater found in Australia...

Arthur Hickman's discovery on Google Earth of what is almost certainly a rare meteorite impact crater in remote Western Australia has earned him both bragging and naming rights.


Measuring 260 metres wide and up to 30 metres deep, the divot is thought to be between 10,000 and 100,000 years old and was stumbled upon in the rich, rust coloured landscape of the Hamersley Ranges in Western Australia's Pilbara region.

If confirmed, the Hickman Crater will become just the 30th officially-verified meteorite impact crater in Australia and the first such discovery since 2005.

According to the Earth Impact Database, a resource maintained by the Geological Survey of Canada and University of New Brunswick, only 173 such impact craters have been discovered in the world.

Read full story here
The find will likely deliver a lifetime of peer group kudos to Dr Hickman, a government geologist with the Geological Survey of Western Australia.

"I wasn't looking for it," Dr Hickman recalled in a telephone interview. "I was high up in Google Earth [the free program that enables users to scour the Earth using stitched together aerial and satellite images] when I spotted this little circular structure which struck me as odd."

Dr Hickman, who heads his organisation's Pilbara Craton Mapping Project, says he made the discovery last July while he was looking for possible sites of channel iron deposits - highly sought after alluvial deposits from which the ore can be extracted very cheaply.