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Cooperative optical effects are enabled and controlled by interactions between molecular dipoles, meaning that their mutual orientation is of paramount importance to, for example, superabsorbing light-harvesting antennas. Here we show how…
Photosynthesis is remarkable, achieving near unity light harvesting quantum efficiency in spite of dynamic light conditions and noisy physiological environment. Under these adverse conditions, it remains unknown whether there exists a…
The fabrication of functional metamaterials with extreme feature resolution finds a host of applications such as the broad area of surface/light interaction. Non-planar features of such structures can significantly enhance their performance…
We study light absorption by a dipolar absorber in a given environment, which can be a nanoantenna or any complex inhomogeneous medium. From first-principle calculations, we derive an upper bound for the absorption, which decouples the…
Recent developments in synthetic and supramolecular chemistry have created opportunities to design organic systems with tailored nanoscale structure for various technological applications. A key application area is the capture of light…
One-dimensional light harvesting structures with a realistic geometry nano-patterned on an opaque metallic film are optimized to render high transmission efficiencies at optical and infrared frequencies. Simple design rules are developed…
Biology offers a boundless source of adaptation, innovation, and inspiration. A wide range of photosynthetic organisms exist that are capable of harvesting solar light in an exceptionally efficient way, using abundant and low-cost…
We consider bio-inspired ring systems as photovoltaic circuits to explore the advantage of `optical ratcheting', a process whereby the arrangement of coupled optical dipoles enables delocalised excitonic states that are protected against…
We provide direct experimental evidence for a state-selection principle in a far-from-equilibrium system. Using the laser-driven growth of silicon nanowires as a uniquely clean and quantifiable platform, we show that a long-range ordered…
We compute generalized absorption and extinction cross-sections of an optical dipole nanoantenna in a structured environment. The expressions explicitly show the influence of radiation reaction and the local density of states on the…
Efficient devices for light harvesting and photon sensing are fundamental building blocks of basic energy science and many essential technologies. Recent efforts have turned to biomimicry to design the next generation of light-capturing…
Anomalous resonances in properly shaped plasmonic nanostructures can in principle lead to infinite absorption/gain efficiencies over broad bandwidths. By developing a closed-form analytical solution for the fields scattered by conjoined…
A functionally graded Al-doped ZnO structure is presented which combines conductivity, visible transparency and light scattering with mechanical flexibility. The nano and meso-architecture, constituted by a hierarchical, large surface area,…
We predict the enhanced light harvesting of a protein-pigment complex when assembled to a quantum dot (QD) antenna. Our prototypical nanoassembly setup is composed of a Fenna-Mattews-Olson system hosting 8 Bacteriochlorophyll (BChl) a dyes,…
Photosynthetic organisms harvest light energy, utilizing the absorption and energy transfer properties of protein-bound chromophores. Controlling the harvesting efficiency is critical for the optimal function of the photosynthetic…
We develop an analytical model to describe sub-bandgap optical absorption in two-dimensional semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenide (s-TMD) nanoflakes. The material system represents an array of few-layer molybdenum disulfide…
Mechanisms to use nanoparticles to separate sunlight into photovoltaic useful range and thermally useful range to increase the efficiency of solar cells and to dissipate heat radiatively are discussed based upon lessons we learnt from…
Decoherence is mostly detrimental in quantum information and quantum optics applications. However, the interplay between environment-induced incoherent dynamics and unitary evolution can give rise to novel quantum many-body phenomena that…
We propose a light-trapping structure offering a significant enhancement of photovoltaic absorption in transparent organic solar cells operating at infrared while the visible light transmission keeps sufficiently high. The main mechanism of…
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…