Enhancing Light: Application for Energy Conservation?

[radioHam]

I read the following article with interest:
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0810/0810.0592.pdf"
What is not apparent (to a layman such as myself) is the application for such an antenna. I was quite excited to think that if light can be gleaned by an antenna, and indeed be 'magnified' by virtue of using a Yagi-Uda type with several dB gain, then surely there is likely to be a potential energy saving application? I can imagine a sheet of metal film etched with thousands or millions of antennae and 'feeding' a solar panel or suchlike. Is this just pie in the sky?
David

 

[Andy Resnick]

I quickly scanned the article- it appears to be related to near-field applications. The important concept to keep in mind is that the main result (here) is simply the ability to detect subwavelength holes in a screen.

I'm not sure why they refer to a cavity as an antenna- I suppose they have a lot of the same characteristics (resonant behavior, for example), but this is all near-field stuff, there's no propagating modes being emitted. Any detector would have to be placed in the near-field region to pick up the transmitted radiation.