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Machines are only Carnot efficient if they are reversible, but then their power output is vanishingly small. Here we ask, what is the maximum efficiency of an irreversible device with finite power output? We use a nonlinear scattering…
Photoluminescence (PL) is a fundamental light-matter interaction, which conventionally involves the absorption of energetic photon, thermalization and the emission of a red-shifted photon. Conversely, in optical-refrigeration the absorption…
Fluctuations of the optical power incident on a photodiode can be converted into phase fluctuations of the resulting electronic signal due to nonlinear saturation in the semiconductor. This impacts overall timing stability (phase noise) of…
Thermodynamics dictates that the specific heat of a system is strictly non-negative. However, in finite classical systems there are well known theoretical and experimental cases where this rule is violated, in particular finite atomic…
Single-junction photovoltaic cells are considered to be efficient solar energy converters, but even ideal cells cannot exceed the their fundamental thermodynamic efficiency limit, first analysed by Shockley and Queisser (SQ). For moderated…
This work focuses on the production of negative-ions on graphite and diamond surfaces bombarded by positive ions in a low pressure (2 Pa) low power (20 W) capacitively coupled deuterium plasma. A sample is placed opposite a mass…
Utility-scale solar arrays require specialized inspection methods for detecting faulty panels. Photovoltaic (PV) panel faults caused by weather, ground leakage, circuit issues, temperature, environment, age, and other damage can take many…
For the development and optimization of novel light emitting materials, such as fluorescent proteins, dyes and semiconductor quantum dots (QDs), a reliable and robust analysis of the emission efficiency is crucial. The emission efficiency…
A thermal diode transports heat mainly in one preferential direction rather than in the opposite direction. This behavior is generally due to the non-linear dependence of certain physical properties with respect to the temperature. Here we…
Efficient frequency conversion of photons has important applications in optical quantum technology because the frequency range suitable for photon manipulation and communication usually varies widely. Recently, an efficient frequency…
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…
Photonic addressing of superconducting circuits has been proposed to overcome wiring complexity and heat load challenges, but superconducting-photonic links suffer from an efficiency-noise trade-off that limits scalability. This trade-off…
We calculated the maximum power conversion efficiency as a function of the optical band gap for organic photovoltaic (PV) cells by assuming that charge separation is accompanied by the energy loss required to dissociate strongly bound…
The energetic landscape of charge transfer (CT) states at the interface of electron donating and electron accepting domains in organic optoelectronic devices is crucial for their performance. Central questions -- such as the role of static…
A quantum interface between microwave and optical photons is essential for entangling remote superconducting quantum processors. To preserve fragile quantum states, a transducer must operate efficiently while generating less than one photon…
For efficient photovoltaic conversion, it is important to understand how quantum entropy-related quantities evolve during the photovoltaic process. In this study, using a double quantum dot (DQD) photocell model, we explored the dynamic…
The photoelectric effect describes the ejection of an electron upon absorption of one or several photons. The kinetic energy of this electron is determined by the photon energy reduced by the binding energy of the electron and, if strong…
The development of linear quantum computing within integrated circuits demands high quality semiconductor single photon sources. In particular, for a reliable single photon source it is not sufficient to have a low multi-photon component,…
Energy-transfer efficiency is an important quantity in plasma-wakefield acceleration, especially for applications that demand high average power. Conventionally, the efficiency is measured using an electron spectrometer; an invasive method…
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…