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Super-human surgeons, "bots" watching us from the skies and magic-carpet commutes to work via flying car are among the tantalizing innovations the World Future Society is forecasting for 2009 and the decades to follow.
Since 1967, the Washington think-tank has helped its members plan for changing trends, says Patrick Tucker, senior editor of the society's magazine, The Futurist.
He says the yearly Outlook report is even more important in these volatile times.
"It's meant to engage both near and long-term realities, inspire discussion and encourage realistic and optimistic planning,"he says. "We're not looking to make a picture of the future. We hope to paint many different pictures."
This year's highlights run from flying cars to robotic surgery.
Nanotechnology -- the ability to manufacture at the atomic level--may soon al-low for constant surveillance of every word we utter and move we make, says Gene Stephens, a professor emeritus of criminal justice at the University of South Carolina and a consultant on future crime.
Nanotechnology could eventually be harnessed to make "bots" of just a few at-oms that would be invisible to the eye but programmed for different purposes, including surveillance, he says.
Flying cars already exist, they're just not legal to drive and there are no publicly available highways on air.
Paul Moller, president of California-based Moller International, has been working on the idea for four decades and functions as his own test pilot -- though for now his vehicles have to be tethered to a crane for legal reasons.
Instead of machines patching up humans or long-distance operations performed by absent surgeons, robotic surgery will create"super-human doctors" who are even more present in the operating room. Robotic surgery will mean surgical devices that are more sensitive to human touch or provide constant streams of data on how much force they're exerting, allowing for less invasive operations and quicker recoveries, says Tucker.
Other highlights include integrating video games into the curriculum of medical schools and the decline of the amateur online.

Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a radical new method of focusing a stream of ions into a point as small as one nanometer (one billionth of a meter).* Because of the versatility of their approach—it can be used with a wide range of ions tailored to the task at hand—it is expected to have broad application in nanotechnology both for carving smaller features on semiconductors than now are possible and for nondestructive imaging of nanoscale structures with finer resolution than currently possible with electron microscopes.
Researchers and manufacturers routinely use intense, focused beams of ions to carve nanometer-sized features into a wide variety of targets. In principle, ion beams also could produce better images of nanoscale surface features than conventional electron microscopy. But the current technology for both applications is problematic. In the most widely used method, a metal-coated needle generates a narrowly focused beam of gallium ions. The high energies needed to focus gallium for milling tasks end up burying small amounts in the sample, contaminating the material. And because gallium ions are so heavy (comparatively speaking), if used to collect images they inadvertently damage the sample, blasting away some of its surface while it is being observed. Researchers have tried using other types of ions but were unable to produce the brightness or intensity necessary for the ion beam to cut into most materials.
The NIST team took a completely different approach to generating a focused ion beam that opens up the possibility for use of non-contaminating elements. Instead of starting with a sharp metal point, they generate a small "cloud" of atoms and then combine magnetic fields with laser light to trap and cool these atoms to extremely low temperatures. Another laser is used to ionize the atoms, and the charged particles are accelerated through a small hole to create a small but energetic beam of ions. Researchers have named the groundbreaking device "MOTIS," for "Magneto-Optical Trap Ion Source." (For more on MOTs, see "Bon MOT: Innovative Atom Trap Catches Highly Magnetic Atoms," NIST Tech Beat Apr. 1, 2008.)
"Because the lasers cool the atoms to a very low temperature, they're not moving around in random directions very much. As a result, when we accelerate them the ions travel in a highly parallel beam, which is necessary for focusing them down to a very small spot," explains Jabez McClelland of the NIST Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology. The team was able to measure the tiny spread of the beam and show that it was indeed small enough to allow the beam to be focused to a spot size less than 1 nanometer. The initial demonstration used chromium atoms, establishing that other elements besides gallium can achieve the brightness and intensity to work as a focused ion beam "nano-scalpel." The same technique, says McClelland, can be used with a wide variety of other atoms, which could be selected for special tasks such as milling nanoscale features without introducing contaminants, or to enhance contrast for ion beam microscopy. ###
* J. L. Hanssen, S. B. Hill, J. Orloff and J. J. McClelland. Magneto-optical trap-based, high brightness ion source for use as a nanoscale probe. Nano Letters 8, 2844 (2008).
Contact: Mark Bello mark.bello@nist.gov 301-975-3776 National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
bp.blogspot.com/_TZ4zYEBSw1I/SVvlOYsrqWI/AAAAAAAAI-o/Wy6KGoVh1m8/s1600-h/nano_ion_beams.jpg Caption: NIST researcher Jabez McClelland makes adjustments on the new magneto-optical trap ion source, capable of focusing beams of ions down to nanometer spots for use as a 'nano-scalpel' in advanced electronics processing.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Artificial bone marrow that can continuously make red and white blood cells has been created in a University of Michigan lab.
This development could lead to simpler pharmaceutical drug testing, closer study of immune system defects and a continuous supply of blood for transfusions.
The substance grows on a 3-D scaffold that mimics the tissues supporting bone marrow in the body, said Nicholas Kotov, a professor in the U-M departments of Chemical Engineering; Materials Science and Engineering; and Biomedical Engineering.
The marrow is not made to be implanted in the body, like most 3-D biomedical scaffolds. It is designed to function in a test tube.
Kotov, principal investigator, is an author of a paper about the research currently published online in the journal Biomaterials. Joan Nichols, professor from the University of Texas Medical Branch, collaborated on many aspects of the project.
"This is the first successful artificial bone marrow," Kotov said. "It has two of the essential functions of bone marrow. It can replicate blood stem cells and produce B cells. The latter are the key immune cells producing antibodies that are important to fighting many diseases."
Blood stem cells give rise to blood as well as several other types of cells. B cells, a type of white blood cell, battle colds, bacterial infections, and other foreign or abnormal cells including some cancers.
Cancer-fighting chemotherapy drugs can strongly suppress bone marrow function, leaving the body more susceptible to infection. The new artificial marrow could allow researchers to test how a new drug at certain potencies would affect bone marrow function, Kotov said. This could assist in drug development and catch severe side effects before human drug trials.
Bone marrow is a complicated organ to replicate, Kotov said. Vital to the success of this new development is the three-dimensional scaffold on which the artificial marrow grows. This lattice had to have a high number of precisely-sized pores to stimulate cellular interaction.
The scaffolds are made out of a transparent polymer that nutrients can easily pass through. To create the scaffolds, scientists molded the polymer with tiny spheres ordered like billiard balls. Then, they dissolved the spheres to leave the perfect geometry of pores in the scaffold.
The scaffolds were then seeded with bone marrow stromal cells and osteoblasts, another type of bone marrow cell.
"The geometrical perfection of the polymer molded by spheres is very essential for reproducibility of the drug tests and evaluation of potential drug candidates," Kotov said. "The scaffold for this work had to be designed from scratch closely mimicking real bone marrow because there are no suitable commercially products.
"Certain stem cells that are essential for immunity and blood production are able to grow, divide and differentiate efficiently in these scaffolds due to the close similarity of the pores in the scaffold and the pores in actual bone marrow."
The researchers demonstrated that the artificial marrow gives a human-like response to an infectious New Caledonia/99/H1N1 flu virus. This is believed to be a first.
To determine whether the substance behaves like real bone marrow, the scientists implanted it in mice with immune deficiencies. The mice produced human immune cells and blood vessels grew through the substance.
The paper is called "In vitro analog of human bone marrow from 3D scaffolds with Biomimetic inverted colloidal crystal geometry."
Michigan Engineering The University of Michigan College of Engineering is ranked among the top engineering schools in the country. At more than $130 million annually, its engineering research budget is one of largest of any public university. Michigan Engineering is home to 11 academic departments and a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center. The college plays a leading role in the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Energy Institute and hosts the world class Lurie Nanofabrication Facility. Michigan Engineering's premier scholarship, international scale and multidisciplinary scope combine to create The Michigan Difference. Find out more at engin.umich.edu/.

Over the last 60 years, ever-smaller generations of transistors have driven exponential growth in computing power. Could molecules, each turned into miniscule computer components, trigger even greater growth in computing over the next 60?
Atomic-scale computing, in which computer processes are carried out in a single molecule or using a surface atomic-scale circuit, holds vast promise for the microelectronics industry. It allows computers to continue to increase in processing power through the development of components in the nano- and pico scale. In theory, atomic-scale computing could put computers more powerful than today’s supercomputers in everyone’s pocket.
“Atomic-scale computing researchers today are in much the same position as transistor inventors were before 1947. No one knows where this will lead,” says Christian Joachim of the French National Scientific Research Centre’s (CNRS) Centre for Material Elaboration & Structural Studies (CEMES) in Toulouse, France.
Joachim, the head of the CEMES Nanoscience and Picotechnology Group (GNS), is currently coordinating a team of researchers from 15 academic and industrial research institutes in Europe whose groundbreaking work on developing a molecular replacement for transistors has brought the vision of atomic-scale computing a step closer to reality. Their efforts, a continuation of work that began in the 1990s, are today being funded by the European Union in the Pico-Inside project.
In a conventional microprocessor – the “motor” of a modern computer – transistors are the essential building blocks of digital circuits, creating logic gates that process true or false signals. A few transistors are needed to create a single logic gate and modern microprocessors contain billions of them, each measuring around 100 nanometres.
Transistors have continued to shrink in size since Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore famously predicted in 1965 that the number that can be placed on a processor would double roughly every two years. But there will inevitably come a time when the laws of quantum physics prevent any further shrinkage using conventional methods. That is where atomic-scale computing comes into play with a fundamentally different approach to the problem.
“Nanotechnology is about taking something and shrinking it to its smallest possible scale. It’s a top-down approach,” Joachim says. He and the Pico-Inside team are turning that upside down, starting from the atom, the molecule, and exploring if such a tiny bit of matter can be a logic gate, memory source, or more. “It is a bottom-up or, as we call it, 'bottom-bottom' approach because we do not want to reach the material scale,” he explains.
Joachim’s team has focused on taking one individual molecule and building up computer components, with the ultimate goal of hosting a logic gate in a single molecule. How many atoms to build a computer?
“The question we have asked ourselves is how many atoms does it take to build a computer?” Joachim says. “That is something we cannot answer at present, but we are getting a better idea about it.”
The team has managed to design a simple logic gate with 30 atoms that perform the same task as 14 transistors, while also exploring the architecture, technology and chemistry needed to achieve computing inside a single molecule and to interconnect molecules.
They are focusing on two architectures: one that mimics the classical design of a logic gate but in atomic form, including nodes, loops, meshes etc., and another, more complex, process that relies on changes to the molecule’s conformation to carry out the logic gate inputs and quantum mechanics to perform the computation.
The logic gates are interconnected using scanning-tunnelling microscopes and atomic-force microscopes – devices that can measure and move individual atoms with resolutions down to 1/100 of a nanometre (that is one hundred millionth of a millimetre!). As a side project, partly for fun but partly to stimulate new lines of research, Joachim and his team have used the technique to build tiny nano-machines, such as wheels, gears, motors and nano-vehicles each consisting of a single molecule.
“Put logic gates on it and it could decide where to go,” Joachim notes, pointing to what would be one of the world’s first implementations of atomic-scale robotics.
The importance of the Pico-Inside team’s work has been widely recognised in the scientific community, though Joachim cautions that it is still very much fundamental research. It will be some time before commercial applications emerge from it. However, emerge they all but certainly will.
“Microelectronics needs us if logic gates – and as a consequence microprocessors – are to continue to get smaller,” Joachim says.
The Pico-Inside researchers, who received funding under the ICT strand of the EU’s Sixth Framework Programme, are currently drafting a roadmap to ensure computing power continues to increase in the future.

Using a beam of light shunted through a tiny silicon channel, researchers have created a nanoscale trap that can stop free floating DNA molecules and nanoparticles in their tracks. By holding the nanoscale material steady while the fluid around it flows freely, the trap may allow researchers to boost the accuracy of biological sensors and create a range of new 'lab on a chip' diagnostic tools.
The Cornell University research team reports its findings in the Jan. 1, 2009, issue of the journal Nature.
"For this research to emerge in the marketplace in a device such as a 'lab on a chip', it is essential for engineers to be able to manipulate matter at the scale of molecules and atoms, particularly while the matter is contained within a fluid stream only slightly larger than the particles themselves," says William Schultz, the National Science Foundation (NSF) program officer who oversaw the researchers' grant. "NSF and other funding agencies have made nano-science and -technology a high priority. The Cornell researchers have made an important step in realizing the full potential of these devices."
Light has been used to manipulate cells and even nanoscale objects before, but the new technique allows researchers to manipulate the particles more precisely and over longer distances.
"At the nanoscale, we can think of light like a series of massless particles called photons," says Cornell engineer David Erickson, one of the co-authors of the study. "We've demonstrated a way to condense these photons down to a very small area and stream them along a special type of waveguide, a device that acts like a nanoscale optical fiber. When pieces of matter, like DNA or nanoparticles, float near these streaming photons, they are sucked in and pushed along with the flow. The effect is sort of like moving a truck by throwing baseballs at it. The trick is that we found a way to have a large number of highly efficient "collisions" between the photons and the nanoparticles, getting them to stay in our device and keep them moving along it."
Erickson and fellow Cornell engineer Michal Lipson, along with their graduate students Allen Yang, Sean Moore and Bradley Schmidt, and colleagues in Erickson's and Lipson's research groups, crafted a wave guide to shunt light into a narrow beam, laying a trap for the DNA and other small pieces of material.
Each of the tiny channels within the waveguide is only 60-120 nanometers (billionths of a meter) wide, thinner than the 1,500 nanometer wavelength of the infrared laser light channeling through them. The channels keep the light waves focused and enhance their ability to interact with the DNA particles, preventing them from flowing by.
The breakthrough is the use of the slot waveguide, which condenses a light wave's energy to scales as small as the target molecules, overcoming prior limitations caused by light diffraction. Because the waveguide is also a "nanochannel" it can both trap and transport objects using light.
For their experiments, the researchers used water solutions containing either DNA or tiny nanoparticles, washing the fluids over the waveguide microchannels. At a speed of 80 micrometers per second, the system traps less than a fourth of the target particles flowing by, but with smaller channel sizes, slower flows and higher energy lasers, the success rate increases.
"What we're hoping to do now is better understand some of the underlying physics to see what else might be possible with this approach," adds Erickson. "Ultimately we imagine being able to take all the ultrafast and highly efficient optical devices that have been developed for communications and other applications over the last 20 years and apply them to the manipulation of matter in different types of nanosystems. Hopefully in the future we can shuttle around individual strands of DNA the same way we now shuttle around light."
In future iterations of the system, the light will both capture the particles and transport them, so the DNA would arrive at the trap and then be directed to another location, such as a sensor or a staging ground for the assembly of a structure.
-NSF-
Media Contacts Joshua A. Chamot, NSF (703) 292-7730 jchamot@nsf.gov Bill Steele, Cornell University (607) 255-7164 ws21@cornell.edu
Program Contacts William Schultz, NSF (703) 292-4418 wschultz@nsf.gov
Principal Investigators David Erickson, Cornell University (607) 255-4861 de54@CORNELL.EDU
Related Websites The Erickson Laboratory: http://www.mae.cornell.edu/erickson/index.html
http://www.nsf.gov/news/mmg/media/images/dna_trapping_f.jpg DNA molecules in a nanoscale channel get trapped by light.

Researchers have discovered the atomic structure of a powerful "molecular motor" that packages DNA into the head segment of some viruses during their assembly, an essential step in their ability to multiply and infect new host organisms.
The researchers, from Purdue University and The Catholic University of America, also have proposed a mechanism for how the motor works. Parts of the motor move in sequence like the pistons in a car's engine, progressively drawing the genetic material into the virus's head, or capsid, said Michael Rossmann, Purdue's Hanley Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences.
The motor is needed to insert DNA into the capsid of the T4 virus, which is called a bacteriophage because it infects bacteria. The same kind of motor, however, also is likely present in other viruses, including the human herpes virus.
"Molecular motors in double-stranded DNA viruses have never been shown in such detail before," said Siyang Sun, a postdoctoral research associate working in Rossmann's lab.
Findings are detailed in a paper appearing online on Dec. 24 in the journal Cell. The lead authors are Sun and Kiran Kondabagil, a research assistant professor at Catholic University of America working with biology professor Venigalla B. Rao.
"This research is allowing us to examine the inner workings of a virus packaging motor at the atomic level," Rao said. "This particular motor is very fast and powerful."
Other researchers have determined that the T4 molecular motor is the strongest yet discovered in viruses and proportionately twice as powerful as an automotive engine. The motors generate 20 times the force produced by the protein myosin, one of the two proteins responsible for the contraction and strength of muscles.
The virus consists of a head and tail portion. The DNA-packaging motor is located in the same place where the tail eventually connects to the head. Most of the motor falls off after the packaging step is completed, allowing the tail to attach to the capsid. The DNA is a complete record of a virus's properties, and the capsid protects this record from damage and ensures that the virus can reproduce by infecting a host organism.
Sun determined that the packaging motor is made of two ringlike structures, and both of these discs contain five segments made of a protein called gp17, for gene product 17. The researchers determined the atomic structure of these protein segments using a procedure called X-ray crystallography. They also used another technique called cryo-electron microscopy, which enabled them to see a more distant, overall design of the motor's ringlike structure.
One disc sits on top of the other, and each of the five segments of the top disc shares a gp17 protein with a corresponding segment in the bottom disc. The gp17 proteins have two segments, or domains, one segment in the lower disc and the other segment in the upper disc.
The lower disc first attaches to the DNA and is then drawn upward by the upper disc, pushing the DNA into the virus's capsid in the process. The top disc of the motor pulls the lower disc upward using electrostatic forces generated between oppositely charged objects, Rossmann said.
"These findings determined the relationship between the motor and DNA," Rossmann said.
The research data also showed that the motor is dynamic and apparently exists in two states: relaxed and tensed, the latter likely occurring when the top disk has attracted the lower disc.
Researchers at Catholic University of America supplied the gp17 and other materials, and the Purdue researchers studied the structure of the materials.
"By combining the structural data and the biochemical data of our colleagues at the Catholic University of America, we were jointly able to come up with a hypothesis of how this motor works," Rossmann said.
Because herpes and other viruses contain similar DNA packaging motors, such findings could someday help scientists design drugs that would interfere with the function of these motors and mitigate the result of some viral infections. The findings also could have other future applications, such as developing alternatives to current antibiotics, creating methods to deliver genetic material to patients for gene therapy or creating tiny "nanomotors" in future machines.
"But this is very basic research, and it's far too soon to talk more about possible practical applications of this knowledge," Rossmann said.
The research paper was written by Sun; Kondabagil; Bonnie Draper and Tanfis I. Alam, both postdoctoral fellows at CUA; Purdue electron microscopist Valorie D. Bowman; Zhihong Zhang, a CUA graduate research assistant; CUA graduate student Shylaja Hegde; and postdoctoral research associate Andrei Fokine, Rossmann and Rao, all of Purdue.
The research has been funded primarily by the National Science Foundation and the Human Frontier Science Program.
Writer: Emil Venere, (765) 494-4709, venere@purdue.edu
Sources: Michael Rossmann, (765) 494-4911, mr@purdue.edu
Venigalla B. Rao, (202) 319-5271, rao@cua.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
Note to Journalists: Siyang Sun pronounces her name See-Yang Sun. Journalists who do not have access to EurekAlert! can obtain a copy of the paper by contacting Cathleen Genova of the journal Cell at (617) 397-2802, cgenova@cell.com. A Seyet LLC animation showing the DNA-packaging process is available at http://www.seyet.com/hosted_videos/Purdue/ T42_Packing/T42_Packing.html
http://news.uns.purdue.edu/images/+2008/RossmannMotorsLO.jpg IMAGE CAPTION: This artist's conception depicts the structure of a "molecular motor" that packages DNA into the head segment of the T4 virus. Researchers at Purdue and The Catholic University of America have determined the atomic structure of this motor, which is made of two ringlike structures, and both of these discs contain five segments made of a protein called gp17. The image shows a cross section of the virus head, or capsid, and an artist's interpretation of the motor as it packages DNA into the virus. The hands represent the five segments of the ringlike structures. Each hand takes a turn grabbing the DNA and moving it into the head until the head is full. [The journal Cell, Dec. 26, 2008; Steven McQuinn, independent science artist, and Venigalla Rao, The Catholic University of America. Image embargoed for noon on Dec. 24.)

As worldwide demand for cleaner energy grows, scientists are working frantically in every area to improve the amount of energy we are able to generate from various renewable sources. Many existing technologies, such as wind and solar power, are advancing slowly in efficiency as research continues, while others such as wave power are merely prototypes awaiting verification. Solar panel technology has undergone numerous upgrades over the years, many of which have increased efficiency by altering the materials and coatings applied to the panels. And now, two new nanotechnologies may provide a large increase in solar panel efficiency, driving solar panels down to costs manageable for homeowners and small businesses.
Solar power can take on many forms - for instance, the infrared light can be used to heat water for a home or a steam engine. It can also refer to photovoltaics, which convert light energy directly into electricity. Photovoltaics work by sandwiching two materials together, one with a few extra electrons and one with slightly less. When light hits the material, it adds energy to the extra electrons and motivates them to move across the junction between the two materials to the material with a deficit of electrons, where it then flows through the electric circuit and back to the side with excess electrons. Newer solar cells use technologies such as multiple junctions and layers of semiconducting material to increase efficiency, as well as coatings on the sunlight side of the cell.
The Earth is bathed in enough sunlight every hour to power the entire world for a year. The reason we can't harness all of that power lies in the very low efficiency of solar cells. At their conception, solar cells were around 4% efficient - meaning that only 4% of the incident solar energy was converted into electricity. Now, commercial solar cells can reach efficiencies around 15%, although much higher efficiencies (~40%) have been demonstrated in laboratory conditions.
Why are solar cells so inefficient? The problem lies in the amount of energy required to motivate an electron to move across the junction. Each material used for solar cells has something called the "band gap" energy - which is the amount of energy required to motivate an electron across the cell junction. Silicon, for instance, has a band gap energy of 1.1 electron volts (the amount of energy gained by an electron as it moves through a 1-volt electric field), so any incident photon carrying more than 1.1 eV of energy will motivate an electron (provided it's not reflected first). Unfortunately, any extra energy carried by that photon will be converted into heat instead of electricity. Multiple junction cells increase efficiency by adding multiple materials with different band gap energies - therefore widening the spectrum of light converted to electricity.
New nanotechnologies, however, will help in a different way. When light strikes a metal, it often creates "waves" of disturbance in the electrons bonded to the surface. If the metal on the surface is a small particle instead of a smooth surface, the particle will vibrate - scattering the light and keeping it inside the solar cell. In addition, by changing the size of the particle, researchers were able to control the frequency of the scattered light and tune it to the band gap energy of the material. Both of these effects greatly increase the amount of light absorbed by electrons in the cell, and therefore increase the number of electrons that cross the junction and enter the electric circuit.
Kylie Catchpole and Albert Polman of the FOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics in The Netherlands are publishing the results in a special energy issue of Optics Express, published by the Optical Society of America. In the paper, they claim they can increase the absorption of red light by a factor of 10. Catchpole also seems confident that their work will be used on all types of solar cells in the near future: "I think we are about three years from seeing plasmons in photovoltaic generation. An important point about plasmonic solar cells is that they are applicable to any kind of solar cell."
Solar cells face another problem in that many electrical contacts are required to connect the sun side of the junction to the circuit. Since the material itself is only semi-conduction, current can't flow through the circuit solely by contacts placed on the sides. Often, very thin wires are used to transfer electrons back to the positive side. This has the unfortunate effect of removing usable area that could be used to change light into electricity.
Now, research at Northwestern University has created a method for separating double-walled carbon nanotubes from single-walled and multiple-walled nanotubes. Double-walled nanotubes have the impressive ability to conduct electricity while also being transparent - therefore, sheets of the material could be used to transfer electricity to the sun side of a solar array while still allowing the use of the total solar array area.
The technique, developed by Mark C. Hersam, professor of materials science and engineering in Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, and professor of chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, and Alexander A. Green, a graduate student in materials science and engineering at Northwestern, uses the different buoyancies of single-, double-, and multi-walled nanotubes to separate them. They are encased in water using a surfactant, which is similar to soap, and then spun in a centrifuge. The method determines the buoyant density of each nanotube, allowing seperation.
With transparent films and surface plasmons, solar cells should be seeing a dramatic increase in efficiency over the next few years. Hopefully the cost will come down enough so that they become ubiquitous on homes and businesses. It would certainly be a shame to continue letting all that sunlight go to waste.
http://www.scientificblogging.com/files/images/nanotube_friction2.jpg nvisible Conductor: Double-walled carbon nanotubes may someday be able to provide transparent conducting films that will increase solar cell efficiency. Photo Credit: University of Texas, Austin.