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Silicon solar cells dominate the solar cell market with record lab efficiencies reaching almost 26%. However, after 60 years of research, this efficiency saturated close to the theoretical limit for silicon, and radically new approaches are…
Increasing interest towards the observation of the highest energy cosmic rays has motivated the development of new detection techniques. The properties of the Cherenkov photon pulse emitted in the atmosphere by these very rare particles…
Thermophotovotaics convert thermal radiation from local heat sources to electricity. A new breakthrough in creating highly efficient thin-film solar cells can potentially enable thermophotovoltaic systems with unprecedented high efficiency.…
Hot-carrier solar cells are envisioned to utilize energy filtering to extract power from photogenerated electron-hole pairs before they thermalize with the lattice, and thus potentially offer higher power conversion efficiency compared to…
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…
The maximal concentration limit of solar radiation for photovoltaic applications is assumed to be constant, at Cmax\approx46,000 suns. This limit is easily found via a geometrical application of the 2nd law of thermodynamics to a radiation…
Epitaxially-grown quantum well and quantum dot solar cells suffer from weak light absorption, strongly limiting their performance. Light trapping based on optical resonances is particularly relevant for such devices to increase light…
We optimized micro-holes in a thin slab for fast Si photodetectors at wavelength 800-950nm. Lateral modes are shown to be responsible for the effective light trapping. Small disorder and cone hole shapes helped achieve uniform quantum…
Selenium is an elemental semiconductor with a wide bandgap suitable for a range of optoelectronic and solar energy conversion technologies. However, developing such applications requires an in-depth understanding of the fundamental material…
Solar cells based on conventional semiconductors have low efficiency in converting solar energy into electricity because the excess energy beyond the gap of an incident solar photon is converted into heat by phonons. Here we show by ab…
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…
The increase of cell efficiency resulting from using a diffraction grating as a back reflector is investigated. An enhancement coefficient is introduced as a figure of merit that accounts for the ability of the rear grating to increase the…
Photon impingement is capable of liberating electrons in semiconductors. When the electron transport is primarily governed by temperature gradients, high irreversibilities will result, thus lowering converters' efficiencies. A fundamental…
A recombination radiation line of electron-hole plasma, observed in electroluminescence spectra of tunneling silicon MOS diodes, has been investigated at the temperature > 300 K. The internal quantum efficiency of the luminescence, equal to…
Light trapping photonic crystal (PhC) patterns on the surface of Si solar cells provides a novel opportunity to approach the theoretical efficiency limit of 32.3%, for light-to-electrical power conversion with a single junction cell. This…
We re-examine solar emission of hidden photons gamma' (mass m) caused by kinetic mixing. We calculate the emission rate with thermal field theory methods and with a kinetic equation that includes "flavor oscillations" and photon absorption…
In this Letter we report on the results of our search for photons from a U(1) gauge factor in the hidden sector of the full theory. With our experimental setup we observe the single spectrum in a HPGe detector arising as a result of the…
We present first principles calculations of the electronic properties of trigonal selenium with emphasis on photovoltaic applications. The band gap and optical absorption spectrum of pristine selenium is calculated from many-body…
Silicon photodetectors operating at near-infrared wavelengths with high-speed and high sensitivity are becoming critical for emerging applications, such as Light Detection and Ranging Systems (LIDAR), quantum communications, and medical…
The Shockley-Queisser (SQ) limit provides a convenient metric for predicting light-to-electricity conversion efficiency of a solar cell based on the band gap of the light-absorbing layer. In reality, few materials approach this radiative…