An ultra-compact (6 μm length) electro-absorber modulator with transverse magnetic (TM) to transverse-electric (TE) conversion is proposed. The device performance is controlled by means of the semiconductor-to-metal transition of the vanadium dioxide. For the insulating state, the device performs as a TM–TE converter with insertion losses of 0.3 dB and extinction ratio of 36 dB at a wavelength of 1.55 μm. Changing to the metallic state, the TE generated component is attenuated due to the increase of losses in the VO2 and the mode mismatch. This electro-absorber modulator shows a broadband operation with an extinction ratio higher than 10 dB and insertion losses below 0.5 dB for a range of 60 nm covering the whole C-band.
Photovoltaics is amongst the most important technologies for renewable energy sources, and plays a key role in the development of a society with a smaller environmental footprint. Key parameters for solar cells are their energy conversion efficiency, their operating lifetime, and the cost of the energy obtained from a photovoltaic system compared to other sources. The optimization of these aspects involves the exploitation of new materials and development of novel solar cell concepts and designs. Both theoretical modeling and characterization of such devices require a comprehensive view including all scales from the atomic to the macroscopic and industrial scale. The different length scales of the electronic and optical degrees of freedoms specifically lead to an intrinsic need for multiscale simulation, which is accentuated in many advanced photovoltaics concepts including nanostructured regions. Therefore, multiscale modeling has found particular interest in the photovoltaics community, as a tool to advance the field beyond its current limits. In this article, we review the field of multiscale techniques applied to photovoltaics, and we discuss opportunities and remaining challenges.
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