Article Summary #15

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100212172537.htm
Scientists Turn Light Into Electrical Current Using a Golden Nanoscale System
University of Pennsylvania. "Scientists Turn Light Into Electrical Current Using a Golden Nanoscale System." ScienceDaily 14 February 2010. 14 February 2010 .
At the University of Pennsylvania, materials scientists at the Nano/Bio Center have produced a new way to conduct electricity, similar to that of Photovoltaic Cells(Solar Panels) using nano-sized molecules of Gold. The result of experiments like this, provide a technological approach for nano-sized circuits that can power themselves through sunlight. A useful application that this technology could be used for is computer data storage, which currently uses binary data that is either on or off, that could instead use photovoltaic circuits in which you could store data corresponding to different wavelengths of light.
What researchers have done, is place these nano-sized pieces of gold, and lined them up. Then, they focused optical radiation. aka – light, onto the gold strips. What they found was that it created a huge electrical current that increased the current level of today’s standard by a factor of 400 to 2000 percent. The way that these levels can be increased by 2000 percent is because of light resonance. If the light is angled just right, it will reflect and bounce off other sheets of gold, and increase intensity every time it hits another piece of gold. Now of course there are limitations, but unless unforeseen limitations arise when further testing is being complete, scientists believe that they will be able to create a one-amp, one-volt sample that will be roughly the diameter of a human hair and an inch long.