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Ultrathin planar absorbing layers, including semiconductor and metal films, and 2D materials, are promising building blocks for solar energy harvesting devices but poor light absorption has been a critical issue. Although interference in…
Electromagnetic absorbers have drawn increasing attention in many areas. A series of plasmonic and metamaterial structures can work as efficient narrow band absorbers due to the excitation of plasmonic or photonic resonances, providing a…
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…
A fundamental issue that limits the efficiency of many photoelectrochemical systems is that the photon absorption length is typically much longer than the electron diffusion length. Various photon management schemes have been developed to…
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…
Organic solar cells (OSCs) are uniquely suited for semitransparent applications due to their adjustable absorption spectrum. However, most high-performance semitransparent cells reported to date are based on materials that have shown high…
Ideal absorption describes a particular means of optimizing light-matter interactions with a host of potential applications. This work presents new analytic formulas and describes semi-analytical methods for the design of electric or…
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…
Using metamaterial absorbers, we have shown that metallic layers in the absorbers do not necessarily constitute undesired resistive heating problem for photovoltaics. Tailoring the geometric skin depth of metals and employing the natural…
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…
Enhancing the absorption and emission of electromagnetic waves over a broad range of wavelengths is a topic of fundamental and applied interest in photonics and energy research. In the context of light trapping in solar cells, for example,…
The effects resulting from the introduction of a controlled perturbation in a single pattern membrane on its absorption are first studied and then analyzed on the basis of band folding considerations. The interest of this approach for…
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…
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,…
We discuss regular particle arrays as nanostructured front layers for 3rd generation photovoltaic devices. A rigorous plane-wave method is used to investigate multi-type particle layers combining different radii and configurations. The…
Absorption of electromagnetic energy by a material is a phenomenon that underlies many applied problems, including molecular sensing, photocurrent generation and photodetection. Commonly, the incident energy is delivered to the system…
It is thought that nature already exploits quantum mechanical properties to increase the efficiency of solar energy harvesting devices. So, the operation of these devices can be enhanced by clever design of a nanoscopic, quantum mechanical…
The use of eco-friendly materials for the environment has been addressed as a critical issue in the development of systems for renewable energy applications. In this regard, the investigation of organic photovoltaic (OPV) molecules for the…
The increasing demand for renewable energy is promoting technologies that integrate solar energy harvesting materials with the human living environment, such as building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPVs). This places requirements on…
We report on the role of plasmonic resonances in determining the delicate balance between scattering and absorption of light in nanometric particle arrays applied to the front surface of solar cells. Strong parasitic absorption is shown to…