Solar Goodness

picture-1.png Solar power is always seeing new advancements. It can be something fun like building your own solar powered iPod charger or finding that solar dyes can be used for creating electricity. This month Georgia Tech has developed a solar panel that uses nano-towers to create a more efficient solar cell.

The difference is in the design. Traditional solar panels are often flat and bulky. The new design features an array of nano-towers – like microscopic blades of grass – that add surface area and trap more sunlight.

Plants are Quantum Powered

I don’t really understand all of this quantum power stuff – it just seems so neat! Apparently plants use some quantum level process for photosynthesis which is what plants need to do in order to live. I have no idea how this will impact anything, but it’s just such a groovy discovery.

In a paper entitled, Evidence for wavelike energy transfer through quantum coherence in photosynthetic systems, he and his collaborators report the detection of “quantum beating” signals, coherent electronic oscillations in both donor and acceptor molecules, generated by light-induced energy excitations, like the ripples formed when stones are tossed into a pond.