Summary Energy plays an important role in a fast‐paced modern society. With the depletion of fossil energy, effective utilization of solar energy is getting increasingly urgent. Thermal energy storage is an inevitable choice for effective utilization of renewable energy sources. As one of the most promising renewable energy sources, solar energy is inexhaustible. But it has some shortcomings such as instability and intermittency, affected by time, climate, and geographical location. Thermal energy storage technology, which can effectively reduce the cost of concentrated solar power generation, plays a crucial role in bridging the gap between energy supply and demand. In addition, thermal energy storage subsystem can improve performance and reliability of the whole energy system. According to different principles, thermal storage technology is generally classified as sensible heat storage, latent heat storage, and thermochemical energy storage. Most solar thermal power generation systems, currently demonstrated and operated in the world, adopt the method of sensible thermal energy storage. In contrast, thermochemical energy storage is a relatively new concept, which is still in the stage of basic test and verification. Thermochemical energy storage technology stores and releases energy through endothermic and exothermic reversible reactions. A closed system with separated reactants and products, in theory, can store energy indefinitely. The main thermochemical energy storage systems include redox system, metal hydride system, carbonate decomposition system, ammonia decomposition system, methane reforming system, and inorganic hydroxide system.
Abstract:We present theoretical and numerical analysis of a plasmonic-dielectric hybrid system for symmetric and asymmetric coupling between silver cut-wire pairs and silicon grating waveguide with periodic grooves. The results show that both couplings can induce electromagnetically-induced transparency (EIT) analogous to the quantum optical phenomenon. The transmission spectrum shows a single transparency window for the symmetric coupling. The strong normal phase dispersion in the vicinity of this transparent window results in the slow light effect. However, the transmission spectrum appears an additional transparency window for asymmetry coupling due to the double EIT effect, which stems from an asymmetrically coupled resonance (ACR) between the dark and bright modes. More importantly, the excitation of ACR is further associated with remarkable improvement of the group index from less than 40 to more than 2500 corresponding to a high transparent efficiency by comparing with the symmetry coupling. This scheme provides an alternative way to develop the building blocks of systems for plasmonic sensing, all optical switching and slow light applications. ©2010 Optical Society of America IntroductionElectromagnetically-induced transparency (EIT) [1] is a quantum optical phenomenon to make an absorptive medium transparent to a resonant probe field owing to the destructive quantum interference between two pathways induced by a coupling field. The importance of EIT stems from the fact it gives rise to greatly enhanced nonlinear susceptibility in the spectral region of induced transparency and is associated with steep dispersion, allowing for many potential applications, such as the transfer of quantum correlations [2], nonlinear optical processes [3], and ultraslow light propagation [4][5][6]. However, the special experimental conditions for observing this EIT effect in atomic medium hinder its further practical application. This limitation was soon resolved by mimicking the EIT effect in classical oscillator systems [7] that have more merits than in the atomic systems. Recently, various resonant dielectric optical systems including coupled silicon-ring resonators system, photonic crystals, drop-filter cavity-waveguide systems, and a hybridized plasmonic-waveguide system have been proposed and demonstrated to display EIT-like spectral response at room temperature [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. These realizations have further catalyzed an ongoing search for classical systems mimicking EIT. In particular, the plasmonic analogues of EIT in metamaterials, such as dipole antennas [17][18][19][20][21][22][23], fish scales metallic patterns [24], split-ring resonators [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31], trapped-mode patterns [32,33], and array of metallic nanoparticles [34] which are the most recent and promising additions to the existing array of classical EIT schemes, have been demonstrated theoretically and experimentally. More recently, a method of phase-coupled plasmon-induced transparency has also been presented fo...
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