On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 17:50:49 -0500, (Richard
Harrison) wrote:

Roy, W7EL wrote:
"And a 1" square solar cell is about 50,000 wavelengths on a side."

Hi Richard,

That wasn't very apropos of anything without some correlative. One
such is that as a consequence of that size (in wavelength count), the
cell exhibits a Lambertian shaped distribution for radiation response
characteristic.

My question is why anyone would want to produce micro, micro antenna
arrays when the LASER produces a narrow, uniform, high-intensity beam
of light of one very pure color (frequency) that can be directed in a
very thin concentrated beam over short and very long distances. Maybe
there isn`t such an efficient receiving device?

Someone may choose to replace the LASER by such an antenna grid, but
there is a world of other choices for their effort that LASER does not
enter into.

One such application, that I have offered here in the past, is a
conjugate mirror. Researchers have designed one in the RF mm
wavelengths. Nanotechnology has the promise of shrinking that
dimension to the visible light wavelengths - using DNA base pairs for
structure if they chose. ;-)

In a sense the conjugate mirror is the reverse analogue of the LASER
and would work quite well with LASER emissions. In fact it could
enable a new class of LASER construction.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC