FYI,

"Sunbeams Promise Low-cost Surgery - Israeli scientists say focused
sunlight offers a low-cost alternative to laser surgery"
http://optics.org/articles/news/8/8/32/1

: Scientists in Israel have developed a device based on a concave
: dish that intensifies sunlight by a factor of 15 000. By focusing
: this light into an optical fiber and delivering it to an operating
: theatre, the team says its solar-surgery setup promises to be a low-
: cost alternative to laser surgery. (Solar Energy 72 459)

: "Our experimental evidence shows that solar surgery is as good as
: the best laser fiberoptic surgery," said Jeffery Gordon from
: Israel's Ben-Gurion University. "We view this as a cost-effective
: alternative, at least for sun-belt climates and sunny developing
: countries."

: The prototype system uses a curved, 200 mm-diameter dish to collect
: the sunlight and focus it onto a small mirror. The mirror then
: redirects the rays into an optical fiber with a 1 mm diameter. A
: solar tracker follows the sun across the sky and the whole system
: is encased to avoid dust contaminating the optics.

: Using this approach, Gordon and colleagues have transported the
: light to a remote target up to 20 meters away. "The net solar power
: delivered at the distal end of the fiber is in excess of 8 W," he
: says.

: The first experimental findings from this study are due to be
: published in Applied Physics Letters on 30 September.

: A commercial version of the mini-dish is also on the cards.
: According to Gordon, the unit price would be around USD 1000.

Mark Reiff