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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

Using a new optical magnetic metamaterial claimed to have revolutionary properties, physicists from the Australian National University (ANU) and the University of California Berkeley (UC Berkeley) have produced a prototype device that could be used in super-efficient thermophotovoltaic cells. These cells do not need direct sunlight to generate electricity, but instead absorb infrared radiation to convert to electric current and, unlike conventional photovoltaic cells, can do so even in the dark [gizmag.com].

To create this new material, the researchers stacked twenty alternating nanomaterial sheets of gold and magnesium fluoride (with thicknesses of 30 nm and 45 nm, respectively), one on top of the other and sat them all on a 50-nm-thin silicon nitride base. Using focused ion milling, the researchers then cut a series of elongated holes in the material to produce cavities.

All of this work endowed the material with properties designed to exploit a phenomenon known as "magnetic hyperbolic dispersion." Simple dispersion dictates how light behaves with various materials and is often seen as the a three-dimensional propagation of electromagnetic radiation in different directions. For example, a ground glass convex lens would have a spherical or ellipsoid shape to its dispersion.

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