Related papers: Light trapping in solar cells at the extreme coupl…
Light confinement and amplification in micro- & nano-fiber have been intensively studied and a number of applications have been developed. However, the typical micro- & anno- fibers are usually free-standing or positioned on a substrate…
In this paper, we propose a method for tailoring the absorption in a photonic crystal membrane. For that purpose, we first applied Time Domain Coupled Mode Theory to such a subwavelength membrane and demonstrated that 100% resonant…
Theoretically and experimentally we have proved the existence of optimal thickness of the porous layer used as an anti-reflection coating in solar cells. We have taken into account the joint mechanisms of generation and recombination of…
Nano-scaled dielectric and metallic structures are popular light tapping structures in thin-film solar cells. However, a large parasitic absorption in those structures is unavoidable. Most schemes based on such structures also involve the…
Simulations of metal nanopatterns embedded in a thin photovoltaic absorber show significantly enhanced absorbance within the semiconductor, with a more than 300% increase for {\lambda} = 800 nm. Integrating with AM1.5 solar irradiation,…
We present state-of-the-art first-principle calculations of the electronic and optical properties of silicon allotropes with interesting characteristics for applications in thin-film solar cells. These new phases consist of distorted sp$^3$…
We suggest a novel concept of efficient light-trapping structures for thin-film solar cells based on arrays of planar nanoantennas operating far from plasmonic resonances. The operation principle of our structures relies on the excitation…
In this work, a metamaterial selective solar absorber made of nanostructured titanium gratings deposited on an ultrathin MgF2 spacer and a tungsten ground film is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. Normal absorptance of the…
Silicon photodetectors operating at near-infrared wavelengths with high-speed and high sensitivity are becoming critical for emerging applications, such as Light Detection and Ranging Systems (LIDAR), quantum communications, and medical…
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…
We theoretically demonstrate the fundamental limit in volume for given materials (e.g. Si, a-Si, CdTe) to fully absorb the solar radiation above bandgap, which we refer as solar superabsorption limit. We also point out the general…
We report the development of broadband solar absorber coatings based on titanium suboxide composite thin films on aluminium substrates. The films are fabricated via scalable DC magnetron sputtering using a Ti target, followed by…
Light trapping in planar ultrathin-film solar cells is limited due to a small number of optical modes available in the thin-film slab. A nanostructured thin-film design could surpass this limit by providing broadband increase in the local…
A design tool was formulated for optimizing the efficiency of inorganic, thin-film, photovoltaic solar cells. The solar cell can have multiple semiconductor layers in addition to antireflection coatings, passivation layers, and buffer…
Elemental selenium is a promising wide-bandgap ($E_\mathrm{G}\approx$ 1.95 eV) photovoltaic material for the next generation of thin-film solar cells. To realize high-efficiency selenium solar cells, it is crucial to optimize the…
The increase of cell efficiency resulting from using a diffraction grating as a back reflector is investigated. An enhancement coefficient is introduced as a figure of merit that accounts for the ability of the rear grating to increase the…
Luminescent solar concentrator (LSC) can absorb large-area incident sunlight, then emit luminescence with high quantum efficiency, which finally be collected by a small photovoltaic (PV) system. The light-harvesting area of the PV system is…
In terahertz (THz) photonics, there is an ongoing effort to develop thin, compact devices such as dielectric photonic crystal (PhC) slabs with desirable light matter interactions. However, previous works in THz PhC slabs are limited to…
Reducing device volume is one of the key requirements for advanced nanophotonic technologies, however this demand is often at odds with designing highly absorbing elements which usually require sizeable thicknesses, such as for detector and…
The photomolecular effect has been hypothesized to enhance evaporation of water at visible wavelengths. This study develops a measurement technique to investigate its presence and magnitude at the liquid-vapor interface of water. The…