Related papers: Plane and parabolic solar panels
A film-coupled metamaterial structure is numerically investigated for enhancing the light absorption in an ultrathin photovoltaic layer of crystalline gallium arsenide (GaAs). The top subwavelength concave grating and the bottom metallic…
Absorption of electromagnetic energy by a material is a phenomenon that underlies many applied problems, including molecular sensing, photocurrent generation and photodetection. Commonly, the incident energy is delivered to the system…
Transformation optics (TO) is a new tool for controlling electromagnetic fields. In the context of metamaterial technology, it provides a direct link between a desired electromagnetic (EM) phenomenon and the material response required for…
Plasma in the Sun's hot corona expands into the heliosphere as a supersonic and highly magnetized solar wind. This paper provides an overview of our current understanding of how the corona is heated and how the solar wind is accelerated.…
We calculate the maximal absorption enhancement obtainable by guided mode excitation in a weakly absorbing dielectric slab over wide wavelength ranges. The slab mimics thin film silicon solar cells in the low absorption regime. We consider…
Project Sunroof estimates the solar potential of residential buildings using high quality aerial data. That is, it estimates the potential solar energy (and associated financial savings) that can be captured by buildings if solar panels…
Calculations are made of the energy supplied to the solar wind by the rapid decay of density fluctuations, identified as ion acoustic waves. It is shown that this process supplies an appreciable fraction, perhaps nearly all, of the observed…
Renewable surplus power is increasing due to the increasing penetration of these intermittent resources. In practice, electric grid operators either curtail the surplus energy resulting from renewable-based generations or utilize energy…
Although spectrally selective materials play a key role in existing and emerging solar thermal technologies, temperature-related degradation currently limits their use to below 700C in vacuum, and even lower temperatures in air. Here we…
We observed an ultra-strong photovoltaic effect induced by resonant intersubband absorption of microwaves in a two-dimensional electrons system on the surface of liquid helium. The effect emerges in the regime of microwave-induced vanishing…
Solar energy is clean and renewable but has a low flux density. The lack of a continuous and reliable power supply reduces their average daily output. Since the infrared part is not utilized to produce electricity, conventional photovoltaic…
Thermionics and thermophotovoltaics are solid-state technologies that convert high-temperature heat into electricity by utilizing fundamental particles, electrons in thermionics and photons in thermophotovoltaics, as energy carriers. Both…
Extended from its electromagnetic counterpart, transformation thermodynamics applied to thermal conduction equations can map a virtual geometry into a physical thermal medium, realizing the manipulation of heat flux with almost arbitrarily…
We propose a mid-infrared device based on thermocouple optical antennas for light sensing and energy harvesting applications. We numerically demonstrate that antennas are able to generate low-power dc signals by beneficing of the…
In this work, a new concept for the conversion of heat into electricity is presented. The conversion is based on the combined effects of a thermoacoustic prime mover coupled with a magnetohydrodynamic generator, using different working…
Condensation and sublimation of water vapors (and CO2, CH4, N2O vapors also) in the Earth atmosphere must be accompanied by emission of latent heats on characteristic frequencies marked in absorption spectra. Calculated wave lengths…
Hot-carrier solar cells are envisioned to utilize energy filtering to extract power from photogenerated electron-hole pairs before they thermalize with the lattice, and thus potentially offer higher power conversion efficiency compared to…
An important parameter that affects PV panel performance of a solar power system is the incident solar radiation with the panel or panel's area of exposure to the sun. The direction and tilt angle of a PV panel are two important factors in…
A galvanic displacement reaction-based, room-temperature "dip-and-dry" technique is demonstrated for fabricating selectively solar-absorbing plasmonic nanostructure-coated foils (PNFs). The technique, which allows for facile tuning of the…
This paper presents fabrication, measurement and modelling results for a metal-dielectric-metal metasurface absorber for solar thermal applications. The structure uses amorphous carbon as an inter-layer between thin gold films with the…