AVS 61st International Symposium & Exhibition
    Thin Film Wednesday Sessions
       Session TF+EM+EN-WeA

Invited Paper TF+EM+EN-WeA3
Nanostructured Photonic Materials for Light-Trapping and Photon Management in Solar Energy Conversion

Wednesday, November 12, 2014, 3:00 pm, Room 307

Session: Thin Film and Nanostructured Coatings for Light Trapping, Extraction, and Plasmonic Applications
Presenter: Koray Aydin, Northwestern University
Correspondent: Click to Email
Nanophotonics, the emerging field of photon-material interactions at the nanoscale, poses many challenges and opportunities for researchers both in the basic and applied sciences. In this talk, I will describe our efforts in designing, realizing and characterizing nanostructured photonic materials including metals, transparent conductive oxides and inorganic semiconductors. By shaping materials at the nanoscale, one can drastically increase absorption in and/or scattering from nanostructures that could provide significant performance enhancements in solar energy conversion processes including photovoltaics and photocatalysis. First, I will discuss our research efforts on realizing broadband plasmonics absorbers enabled by nanophotonic light-trapping approaches in metal-insulator-metal resonators. By using reflective metals and transparent dielectrics, we have achieved significant absorption enhancement in the metallic parts opening routes for spectrally and spatially selective light-absorbing devices that could find use in thermophotovoltaics and hot-electron collection devices. Then, I will describe light-trapping in nanostructured inorganic silicon ultrathin films which results in drastic absorption enhancement over the entire solar spectrum and over the wide range of incident angles. This approach does not involve any plasmonic components and based solely on localized and delocalized resonances in semiconductor nanostructures. This novel resonant light absorption phenomenon in semiconductors could find use in photocatalytic and photovoltaic applications of inorganic semiconductors. Finally, I will talk about our results on nanostructured transparent conductive oxide contacts, which is capable of light trapping over broad range of wavelengths. Nanostructured TCO contacts could benefit both organic and inorganic photovoltaic materials, offering significant absorption and short circuit enhancements.