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Non-iridescent structural colors based on disordered arrangement of monodisperse spherical particles, also called photonic glass, show low color saturation due to gradual transition in reflectivity. No significant improvement is usually…
The absorption of thin hydrogenated amorphous silicon layers can be efficiently enhanced through a controlled periodic patterning. Light is trapped through coupling with photonic Bloch modes of the periodic structures, which act as an…
Photonic balls are spheres tens of micrometers in diameter containing assemblies of nanoparticles or nanopores with a spacing comparable to the wavelength of light. When these nanoscale features are disordered, but still correlated, the…
We report on the fabrication of two-dimensional periodic photonic nanostructures by nanoimprint lithography and dry etching, and their integration into a 1-{\mu}m-thin mono-crystalline silicon solar cell. Thanks to the periodic…
Panchromatic absorbing materials are widely regarded as a key strategy for enhancing solar energy utilization and photocurrent generation. However, in artificial molecular systems, broadening the absorption spectrum is often accompanied by…
Thin films are preferred for high photocurrent conversion efficiency, but strong photon absorption at photon energies below the bandgap (near and shortwave infrared) typically requires thicker semiconductor layers. To address this tradeoff,…
Coating and reflecting thin films for energy harvesting purposes are interesting topics in both theoretical and experimental research. The thin film could help to enhance the absorption of the system via its specific optical properties…
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…
The use of photoferroic materials that combine ferroelectric and light harvesting properties in a photovoltaic device is a promising route to significantly improve the efficiency of solar cells. These materials do not require the formation…
Color can originate from wavelength-dependence in the absorption of pigments or the scattering of nanostructures. While synthetic colors are dominated by the former, vivid structural colors found in nature have inspired much research on the…
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…
A 2-D photonic crystal was integrated experimentally into a thin-film crystalline-silicon solar cell of 1-{\mu}m thickness, after numerical optimization maximizing light absorption in the active material. The photonic crystal boosted the…
It remains a challenge to directly print three-dimensional arbitrary shapes that exhibit structural colors at the micrometer scale. Woodpile photonic crystals (WPCs) fabricated via two-photon lithography (TPL) are promising as building…
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…
Colored solar cells suffer from lower efficiency due to reflection and absorption losses by coatings. By studying different types of coatings on solar cells, the spectrum parameters impacting the solar cell efficiency were identified. A…
We report on very high enhancement of thin layer's absorption through band-engineering of a photonic crystal structure. We realized amorphous silicon (aSi) photonic crystals, where slow light modes improve absorption efficiency. We show…
Wearable electronics and smart textiles are growing fields in the cause to integrate modern communication and computing tools into clothing instead of carrying around smart phones and tablets. Naturally, this also requires power sources to…
The Solar energy production is growing quickly for the global demand of renewa-ble one, decrease the dependence on fossil fuels. However, disposing of used pho-tovoltaic (PV) panels will be a serious environmental challenge in the future…
Efficient devices for light harvesting and photon sensing are fundamental building blocks of basic energy science and many essential technologies. Recent efforts have turned to biomimicry to design the next generation of light-capturing…
We describe strategies to estimate the upper limits of the efficiency of photon energy harvesting via hot electron extraction from gapless absorbers. Gapless materials such as noble metals can be used for harvesting the whole solar…