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To: Curtis E. Bemis who wrote (85)	6/7/2000 4:47:00 PM
From: gpowell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 46821

I know of a former solar cell researcher who started his own company making fiber optic power receivers. As I recall, the devices were GaAs based and made up of a monolithic array of receivers, whereby each element was wire bonded to the next. The device delivered power at 5v. I think the applications were for safe power distribution in ESD sensitive situations, such as bomb detonation. Last I heard he was going through bankruptcy.

To: Curtis E. Bemis who wrote (85)	6/7/2000 9:00:00 PM
From: ftth	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 46821

I found a few papers relating to optically-derived electrical power: High efficiency conversion of laser energy and its application to optical power transmission (from a 1991 conference proceeding) Optical fiber-based power delivery system for optoelectronic sensor modules (from a 1998 IEEE conf proceeding) These 2 were interesting--and have some good info (e.g. paper #2 produced 5.4V @ 38.3 mA using 809nm laser w/ 750mW output power), but not specific enough to our topic.{paper #1 talks about free space optical power conversion from a laser delivery system} The real gem I came across was: Powering the Fiber Loop Optically--A Cost Analysis (J. of Lightwave Tech, V2, No3, Mar 1993) They have an excellent history/background of the field and pretty much answer or at least address all the questions I had. They describe various scenarios, components, and architectures. I'll try to OCR or transcribe some pieces of it later. Their conclusion was this: "From this study, we believe that optical powering, although technically possible, is not economically viable unless the power consumption of FITL end-loop equipment is reduced significantly; given the current constraints on POTS service (FCC rules and other standards, and tariff issues), this may not be possible." {But this was in 1993, remember}