Related papers: Blackbody-cavity Ideal Solar Absorbers
We show that an arbitrary body or aggregate can be made perfectly absorbing at discrete frequencies if a precise amount of dissipation is added under specific conditions of coherent monochromatic illumination. This effect arises from the…
We show that a perfect absorber/thermal emitter exhibiting an absorption peak of 99.9% can be achieved in metallic nanostructures that can be easily fabricated. The very high absorption is maintained for large angles with a minimal shift in…
A Coherent Perfect Absorber (CPA) exploits the interferometric nature of light to deposit all of a light field's incident energy into an otherwise weakly absorbing sample. The downside of this concept is that the necessary destructive…
Electromagnetic absorbers have drawn increasing attention in many areas. A series of plasmonic and metamaterial structures can work as efficient narrow band absorbers due to the excitation of plasmonic or photonic resonances, providing a…
Nanomechanical systems are generally embedded in a macroscopic environment where the sources of thermal noise are difficult to pinpoint. We engineer a silicon nitride membrane optomechanical resonator such that its thermal noise is…
Visibly transparent luminescent solar concentrators (TLSCs) can optimize both power production and visible transparency by selectively harvesting the invisible portion of the solar spectrum. Since the primary applications of TLSCs include…
There remains wide interest in solar cells being made using inexpensive materials and simple device manufacturing techniques to harvest ever-increasing amounts of energy. New semiconductor materials and new quantum nanostructures are…
Enhancing absorption in optically thin semiconductors is the key in the development of high-performance optical and optoelectronic devices. In this paper, we resort to the concept of degenerate critical coupling and design an ultra-thin…
The ability to efficiently absorb thermal radiation within a small material volume is crucial for the realization of compact and high spatial resolution thermal imagers. Here we propose and experimentally demonstrate a compact plasmonic…
HI 21-cm absorption spectroscopy provides a unique probe of the cold neutral gas in normal and active galaxies from redshift z > 6 to the present day. We describe the status of HI absorption studies, the plans for pathfinders/precursors,…
A solar cell design using the combination of titanium dioxide and graphite as active photon absorbing materials were proposed. The titanium dioxide absorbs photons of nearly ultraviolet wavelengths to produce electron hole pairs, while…
We propose in this article a method to generate radiative coolers which are reflective in the solar spectrum and emissive in the transparency window of the atmosphere (8-13 $\mu$m). We choose an approach combining thermal control capacity…
It has gradually been recognized that incoming sunlight can be trapped within a high refractive index semiconductor, n~3.5, owing to the narrow 16degree escape cone. The solar light inside a semiconductor is 4n^2 times brighter than…
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…
Managing the emission and absorption of thermal radiation is crucial for a wide range of technologies, from radiative cooling of buildings and vehicles to thermal regulation of satellites and future lunar and Mars habitats. Despite this…
Plasmonics offer an exciting way to mediate the interaction between light and matter, allowing strong field enhancement and confinement, large absorption and scattering at resonance. However, simultaneous realization of ultra-narrow band…
The first results from a systematic study of warm absorbers in NLS1s using BeppoSAX public archive data are presented here. We confirm ASCA results showing that a warm absorber, as modeled by two oxygen K-shell absorption edges, is less…
Hot-carrier solar cells use the photon excess energy, that is, the energy exceeding the absorber bandgap, to do additional work. These devices have the potential to beat the upper limit for the photovoltaic power conversion efficiency set…
The absorptance of p-polarized light in superconducting-nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) was improved by integrating (1) ~quarter-wavelength nano-optical cavity closed by a gold reflector (OC-SNSPD), (2) nano-cavity-array closed by…
The Shockley-Queisser (S-Q) theory defines the thermodynamic upper limits for Jsc, Voc, FF, and efficiency of a solar cell. The classical calculation assumes an abrupt onset of absorption at the band-edge, perfect absorption for all…