Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

So I've been doing some research for my next project and solar panels caught my eye and interested me a lot. I want to build a solar panel with increased effeciency, my current ideas are:
-Using a material that is transparent like glass but doesn't reflect sunlight
- And the part I don't know how to do, making the solar panel absorb most of the solar range.
So how would I start to make it?

What kind of a solar panel are you thinking about building?
1) Some solar panels are used to heat water. In Florida, many are used to heat pool water. In other areas, they are used to for hot water.
2) DC electric generating solar panels are used to charge batteries in many remote signs and monitoring equipment.
3) Some solar panels are used to heat air and store the heat in rock or masonry to reduce heating costs.

Improving the efficiency of DC electric generating solar panels might be more difficult and expensive to experiment with because the basic fabrication of the panels is a complex semiconductor fabrication problem with large scale devices, so you are going to be limited to working with units that you can purchase for a starting point.