Soaking up the sun with laser treated metal

The University of Rochester research lab that recently used lasers to create unsinkable metallic structures has now demonstrated how the same technology could be used to create highly efficient solar power generators. In a paper in Light: Science & Applications, the lab of Chunlei Guo, a professor of optics also affiliated with Physics and the Materials Science Program, describes using powerful femtosecond laser pulses to etch metal surfaces with nanoscale structures that selectively absorb light only at