Related papers: Hot Electron Dynamics in Plasmonic Thermionic Emit…
Thermal emission is the radiation of electromagnetic waves from hot objects. The promise of thermal-emission engineering for applications in energy harvesting, radiative cooling, and thermal camouflage has recently led to renewed research…
We propose a solar thermal energy conversion system consisting of a solar absorber, a thermoradiative cell or negative illumination photodiode, and a photovoltaic cell. Because it is a heat engine, this system can also be paired with…
Metal nanoparticles are excellent light absorbers. The absorption processes create highly excited electron-hole pairs and recently there has been interest in harnessing these hot charge carriers for photocatalysis and solar energy…
We demonstrate that in confined plasmonic metal structures subject to ultra-fast laser excitation electron thermal diffusion can provide relaxation faster than the energy transfer to the lattice. This relaxation occurs due to excitation of…
Plasmonic structures are renowned for their capability to efficiently convert light into heat at the nanoscale. However, despite the possibility to generate deep sub-wavelength electromagnetic hot spots, the formation of extremely localized…
Thermoelectric effects, such as the generation of a particle current by a temperature gradient, have their origin in a reversible coupling between heat and particle flows. These effects are fundamental probes for materials and have…
Thermoelectric devices are heat engines, which operate as generators or refrigerators using the conduction electrons as a working fluid. The thermoelectric heat-to-work conversion efficiency has always been typically quite low, but much…
Infrared plasmons in doped graphene nanostructures produce large optical absorption that can be used for narrow-band thermal light emission at tunable frequencies that strongly depend on the doping charge. By virtue of Kirchhoff's law,…
We study two techniques to create electrons in a liquid helium environment. One is thermionic emission of tungsten filaments in a low temperature cell in the vapor phase with a superfluid helium film covering all surfaces; the other is…
We discuss the properties of thermal electromagnetic radiation produced by a neutral polarizable nanoparticle moving with an arbitrary relativistic velocity in a heated vacuum background with a fixed temperature. We show that the particle…
The study of parametric instabilities has played a crucial role in understanding energy transfer to plasma and, with that, the development of key applications such as inertial confinement fusion. When the densities are between…
We theoretically study hot electron generation through the emission of a dipole source coupled to a nanoresonator on a metal surface. In our hybrid approach, we solve the time-harmonic Maxwell's equations numerically and apply a quantum…
Nanoscale localization of electromagnetic fields near metallic nanostructures underpins the fundamentals and applications of plasmonics. The unavoidable energy loss from plasmon decay, initially seen as a detriment, has now expanded the…
High-brightness electron sources are a key ingredient to the development of compact accelerator-based light sources. The electron sources are commonly based on (linear) photoemission process where a laser pulse with proper wavelength…
Efficient generation of charge carriers from a metallic surface is a critical challenge in a wide variety of applications including vacuum microelectronics and photo-electrochemical devices. Replacing semiconductors with vacuum/gas as the…
Thermoelectricity is the direct conversion of temperature gradient to electric voltage, and vice-versa. There are several potential applications of thermoelectricity, ranging from clean noiseless cooling, to waste-power harvesting in…
Technological progress in electronics usually requires their use in increasingly aggressive environments, such as rapid thermal cycling and high power density. Thermal diodes appear as excellent candidates to thermally protect critical…
Most attention to improving vacuum thermionic energy conversion device (TEC) technology has been on improving electron emission with little attention to collector optimization. A model was developed to characterize the output…
We report a low cost and scalable method to synthesize solar selective nanofluids from 'used engine oil'. The as-prepared nanofluids exhibit excellent long-term stability and photo-thermal conversion efficiency. Moreover, these were found…
Energy and charge transfer across metal-semiconductor interfaces are the fundamental driving forces for a broad range of applications, such as computing, energy harvesting, and photodetection. However, the exact roles and physical…