Reply To: Fusion Oil

[vansig]

photonic band gap materials could do a lot, for us.

“Unlike semiconductors, which facilitate the coherent propagation of electrons, PBG materials facilitate the coherent localization of photons. Applications include zero-threshold micro-lasers with high modulation speed and low threshold optical switches and all-optical transistors for optical telecommunications and high speed optical computers.

“In a PBG, lasing can occur with zero pumping threshold. Lasing can also occur without mirrors and without a cavity mode since each atom creates its own localized photon mode. This suggests that large arrays of nearly lossless microlasers for all-optical circuits can be fabricated with PBG materials.
— http://www.chem.utoronto.ca/staff/GAO/flashed/Si.htm

it also suggests that you can place photons where you want them, and that could improve efficiency of photo-voltaics quite a lot.