Related papers: Spectrally Selective Solar Absorbers with High-tem…
The endeavor of the scientific community to maximize the possibility to harvest Sun irradiation for energy production is mainly devoted to the improvement of the power conversion efficiency of devices and to the extension of the spectral…
Microwave energy can be advantageously used for materials processing as it provides high heating rates and homogeneous temperature field distribution. These features are partly due to the large microwave penetration depth into dielectric…
Theoretically and experimentally we have proved the existence of optimal thickness of the porous layer used as an anti-reflection coating in solar cells. We have taken into account the joint mechanisms of generation and recombination of…
A broadband, thermally stable absorber is essential for thermophotovoltaic (TPV) systems to simultaneously convert solar and industrial waste heat into usable energy to meet growing power demands. Here, we proposed an ingenious…
An energy efficient spark plasma sintering method enabling the densification of large size samples assisted by very low electric current levels is developed. In this method, the electric current is concentrated in the graphite foils around…
Most solar desalination efforts are photothermal: they evaporate water with ``black'' materials that absorb as much sunlight as possible. Such ``brine-boiling'' methods are limited by the high thermal mass of water, i.e., its capacity to…
We demonstrate a non-destructive approach to provide structural properties on the grain level for the absorber layer of kesterite solar cells. Kesterite solar cells are notoriously difficult to characterize structurally due to the…
Recent technical and commercial successes of existing thin film solar cell technologies motivates exploration of next-generation photovoltaic (PV) absorber materials. Of particular scientific interest are compounds like CuSbSe$_2$, which do…
Glass provides mechanical, chemical, and UV protection to solar panels, enabling these devices to withstand weathering for several decades. The increasing demand for solar electricity and the need to reduce anthropogenic carbon emissions…
The selfconsistent model for the temperature dependence of photoconversion efficiency $\eta$ for highly efficient silicon solar cells (SCs) is developed. It is demonstrated that effect of the efficiency decrease due to increasing…
High entropy alloys (HEAs) have attracted substantial interest in recent years. Thus far, most investigations have focused on their applications as structural materials rather than functional materials. In this paper, we show that…
We propose a frequency selective light trapping scheme that enables the creation of more visually-transparent and yet simultaneously more efficient semitransparent solar cells. A nanoparticle scattering layer and photonic stack back…
Thermophotovoltaic systems in principle enable utilization of heat that is usually regarded as wasted energy. However, the wavelength selectivity of the thermal emitter required for high efficiencies is rather difficult to control with…
We investigate the angular behavior of the upper bound of absorption provided by the guided modes in thin film solar cells. We show that the 4n^2 limit can be potentially exceeded in a wide angular and wavelength range using two-dimensional…
A metamaterial perfect absorber consisting of a tri-layer (Al/ZnS/Al) metal-dielectric-metal system with top aluminium nano-disks is fabricated by laser-interference lithography and lift-off processing. The metamaterial absorber had peak…
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…
We study a highly controllable perfect plasmonic absorber -- a thin metamaterial layer which possess balanced electric and magnetic responses in some frequency range. We show that this regime is compatible with both metal-backed variant of…
Thin-film solar cells that are considered as the second generation of solar cells are known for their low cost and acceptable efficiency. In this technology, semiconductor layers with a thickness of micrometer are deposited on thick enough…
Broadband absorption in the visible spectrum is essential in optoelectronic applications that involve power conversion such as photovoltaics and photocatalysis. Most ultrathin broadband absorbers use parasitic plasmonic structures that…
We present a metamaterial that acts as a strongly resonant absorber at terahertz frequencies. Our design consists of a bilayer unit cell which allows for maximization of the absorption through independent tuning of the electrical…