Journal Abstracts and Articles Bibliography

Historically, economic growth and prosperity have been tied to increased use of energy. Smarter technology may allow us to be more efficient in our energy use, but it's still difficult to envision hundreds of millions of people around the world emerging from poverty without greater use of energy. But where, exactly, will that energy come from? Fossil fuels are and have been our chief energy source, but they pose significant dangers, ranging from those seen in the huge oil leak associated with the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico to the less immediate but potentially graver risks of global warming. And leaving aside environmental considerations, fossil fuels may eventually run out and almost certainly will rise in price as demand grows and readily available reserves are exhausted. [See The Deepwater Horizon Oil Leak, June 2010; Global Warming Report: UN Warms Up to Climate Change, February 2007] So, are we to swear off oil, coal and the like? It's not so easy. Today there's no true source of clean, cheap energy. Wind, thermal, solar — except in special circumstances, they are at present not economically competitive. But perhaps this situation will change soon. A recent advance by a team of scientists at the University of Illinois brings us a step closer to cost-effective electricity from solar cells. The research, led by John A. Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and reported in Nature, details a process for manufacturing high-quality gallium arsenide (GaAs) much more quickly and cheaply than had been possible. These semiconductors can then be used as the basis for highly efficient solar cells, as well as other electroni