Optics at the service of nanotechnology, biomedical procedures
and ultra-efficient solar power generation
Jeffrey Gordon
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Department of Solar Energy & Environmental Physics
Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research
Recent advances in optical design have created new
possibilities in a number of diverse cross-disciplinary areas. This
lecture will survey novel progress in (1) new high-temperature
reactors for the synthesis of inorganic nanomaterials that represent
fundamentally new molecular structures, (2) light-based medical
surgery, and (3) the generation of electricity from sunlight at
unprecedented efficiencies. The design principles are rooted in
non-imaging optics, for radiative transfer at the thermodynamic limit,
especially germane when image fidelity is immaterial but
reconstituting the immense irradiance of ultra-bright light sources is
paramount. Experimental results that verify these newfound
capabilities are presented for each application.