Related papers: Blackbody-cavity Ideal Solar Absorbers
Integrating an absorbing thin film into a resonant cavity is the most practical way to achieve perfect absorption of light at a selected wavelength in the mid-to-far infrared, as required to target blackbody radiation or molecular…
Super-Soft-Source (SSS) X-ray spectra are blackbody-like spectra with effective temperatures ~3-7x10^5 K and luminosities of 10^{35-38} erg/s. SSS grating spectra display atmospheric absorption lines. Radiation transport atmosphere models…
Solar energy is clean and renewable but has a low flux density. The lack of a continuous and reliable power supply reduces their average daily output. Since the infrared part is not utilized to produce electricity, conventional photovoltaic…
The improvement of light absorption in Si/BeSe$_{0.41}$Te$_{0.59}$ heterostructures for solar cell applications is studied theoretically. First, using simple approaches we found that light absorption could be improved in a single…
Harnessing low energy photons is of paramount importance for multi-junction high efficiency solar cells as well as for thermo-photovoltaic applications. However, semiconductor absorbers with bandgap lower than 0.8 eV have been limited to…
The photovoltaic solar cell is a mature technology, with silicon-based technologies deployed at scale, yet current technologies are limited by the Shockley-Queisser thermodynamic limit, known since the early 1960s. The single-junction…
Thermal radiation is the dominant heat loss mechanism for receiver units on a parabolic solar collector plant at high temperatures. Reduction of these losses is traditionally achieved through the use of an optically selective coating on the…
III V semiconductor nanowire based photodetectors have significant potential for remote sensing and LiDAR applications, particularly due to their ability to operate at 1.55 {\mu}m. Achieving room temperature operation and near unity…
Electromagnetic absorbers combining ultrathin profiles with robust absorptivity across wide incidence angles are essential for applications such as stealth technology, wireless communications, and quantum computing. Traditional designs,…
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…
We present a general principle for the rational design of dielectric optical antennas with optimal solar absorption enhancement: leaky mode engineering. This builds upon our previous study that demonstrates the solar absorption of a…
At the core of an ideal single photon detector is an active material that ideally absorbs and converts photons to discriminable electronic signals. A large active material volume favours high-efficiency absorption, but often at the expense…
We ask the question, what are the ideal characteristics of a near-field thermophotovoltaic cell? Our search leads us to a reformulation of near-field radiative heat transfer in terms of the joint density of electronic states of the…
Solar still is a convenient off-grid device for desalination, which can provide fresh water for families, ships, islands and so on. The conventional inclined solar still (ISS) suffers from low efficiency and low productivity. To improve the…
Photovoltaics has two main processes: Optical absorption and power conversion. In photosynthesis, the two equivalent processes are optical absorption and chemical conversion. Whereas in the latter, the two processes are carried out by…
The ability of snapshot compressive imaging (SCI) systems to efficiently capture high-dimensional (HD) data depends on the advent of novel optical designs to sample the HD data as two-dimensional (2D) compressed measurements. Nonetheless,…
This paper introduces the design and comprehensive characterization of a novel three-layer metamaterial absorber, engineered to exploit the unique optical properties of gold, vanadium dioxide, and silicon dioxide. At the core of this…
In this paper, we study the solar selective absorbing properties of metal nanowire array (NWA) / anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) composites at 1000 K via numerical simulation. The materials and structural parameters which influence the…
Dark photons with masses in the 1-100 eV range can be produced in the Sun and subsequently absorbed in terrestrial detectors, offering a promising avenue for probing hidden-sector physics beyond the Standard Model. In this work, we develop…
Synthetic perovskites with photovoltaic properties open a new era in solar photovoltaics. Due to high optical absorption perovskite-based thin-film solar cells are usually considered as fully absorbing solar radiation on condition of ideal…