Related papers: Blackbody-cavity Ideal Solar Absorbers
Power-conversion efficiency is a critical factor for the wider adoption of solar-cell modules. Thin-film solar cells are cheap and easy to manufacture, but their efficiencies are low compared to crystalline-silicon solar cells and need to…
This work introduces solar, a collection of ten optimization problem instances for benchmarking blackbox optimization solvers. The instances present different design aspects of a concentrated solar power plant simulated by blackbox…
A theoretical and experimental analysis is carried out of radiative heat transfer in the coaxial geometry of evacuated tube solar collectors. The gray body approximation implicit in the use of an effective emissivity does not strictly apply…
Using metamaterial absorbers, we have shown that metallic layers in the absorbers do not necessarily constitute undesired resistive heating problem for photovoltaics. Tailoring the geometric skin depth of metals and employing the natural…
An autonomous quantum thermal machine comprising a trapped atom or ion placed inside an optical cavity is proposed and analysed. Such a machine can operate as a heat engine whose working medium is the quantised atomic motion, or as an…
Textured silicon surface structures, in particular black silicon (b-Si), open up possibilities for Si-based solar cells and photodetectors to be extremely thin and highly sensitive owing to perfect light-trapping and anti-reflection…
The transparency of silicon in the infrared region enables the design of nano/microstructures for implementation in devices to harvest the infrared (IR) part of the solar spectrum. Herein we report a strategy that uses arrays of inverted…
Ideal absorption describes a particular means of optimizing light-matter interactions with a host of potential applications. This work presents new analytic formulas and describes semi-analytical methods for the design of electric or…
In this paper we show that arrays of core-shell nanoparticles function as effective thin absorbers of light. In contrast to known metamaterial absorbers, the introduced absorbers are formed by single planar arrays of spherical inclusions…
The dual challenge of decarbonizing the economy and meeting rising global energy demand underscores the need for scalable and cost-effective carbon dioxide removal technologies. Direct air capture (DAC) is among the most promising…
The perfect absorption of light in subwavelength thickness layers generally relies on exotic materials, metamaterials or thick metallic gratings. Here we demonstrate that total light absorption can be achieved in ultra-thin gratings…
The purpose of this work is to look for a practical structure for application of quantum dots (QD) in solar cells in order to enhance sub-band gap photon absorption. We focuse on a stack of strain-compensated GaSb/GaAs type-II QDs. We…
Near-perfect absorbers (NPAs) efficiently absorb visible light with a layered nanostructure that is thinner than the diffusion lengths of photogenerated charge carriers. We overcame existing limitations in fabricating their nanoparticulate…
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…
Utilizing solar energy requires perfect absorption by photovoltaic cells for efficient conversion of solar energy into useful electrical energy. Metasurfaces can, not only be used to absorb solar energy efficiently but, they do so with…
It is currently possible to fabricate crystalline silicon solar cells with the absorber thickness ranging from a few hundreds of micrometers (conventional wafer-based cells) to devices as thin as $1\,\mu\mathrm{m}$. In this work, we use a…
Light trapping in sub-wavelength semiconductor nanowires (NWs) offers a promising approach to simultaneously reducing material consumption and enhancing photovoltaic performance. Nevertheless, the absorption efficiency of a NW, defined by…
Hot Carrier solar cells have long been recognized as an attractive contender in the search for high efficiency photovoltaic devices but their fabrication requires solution of two important material challenges: finding materials with…
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,…
Engineered optical absorbers are of substantial interest for applications ranging from stray light reduction to energy conversion. We demonstrate a large-area (centimeter-scale) metamaterial that features near-unity frequency-selective…