Photonic crystals for highly efficient silicon single junction solar cells

Can Isotope Effects Enable Organic Solar Cells to Achieve Smaller Non-Radiative Energy Losses and Why?

“…Organic solar cells (OSCs) have been emerging as a possible clean energy platform due to their many outstanding advantages of lightweight, mechanical flexibility, nontoxicity, low cost, etc . − To date, the highest power conversion efficiency (PCE) of single-junction OSCs has exceeded 19%, whereas it still remains much lower than that of inorganic or perovskite solar cells. − Note that in the latest reports, ,, the state-of-the-art short-circuit current densities ( J SC ) and fill factors (FF) of OSCs have exceeded 26 mA cm –2 and 80%, respectively, which are comparable to those of the best inorganic or perovskite solar cells. − Thus, the large PCE gap between organic and inorganic or perovskite solar cells is mainly attributed to the relatively smaller open-circuit voltages ( V OC ) of OSCs caused by their larger energy losses ( E loss ) . Thus, it is of critical importance to understand the reasons for the relatively larger E loss and further search for possible methods to reduce the E loss of OSCs.…”

“…Chen et al 35 reported that the cubic boron nitride crystals with enriched 10 B or 11 B exhibit a much higher thermal conductivity at room temperature. Ebbesen et al 36 prepared rubidium-doped C 60 containing various amounts of 13 C and found that the superconducting transition temperature decreases as the 13 C content increases. In addition, the isotope effect has also been widely applied to investigate the impact of nuclear motions on the kinetics of varied optical and electronic processes, such as charge-carrier transport and excited-state decay in organic semiconductors.…”

“…In addition, the isotope effect has also been widely applied to investigate the impact of nuclear motions on the kinetics of varied optical and electronic processes, such as charge-carrier transport and excited-state decay in organic semiconductors. 37−39 Bredas et al 20 employed a fully quantum-mechanical rate formula with the framework of time-dependent perturbation theory to uncover specific contributions of intramolecular vibrations to CT state non-radiative recombination through 13 C-substitution or deuteration. These results all indicate that isotope substitution might also be possible to depress the EVC CT-GS and further reduce non-radiative recombination and the corresponding ΔE loss non-rad in theory for OSCs.…”

Hybrid Tamm plasmon resonance excitation towards a simple and efficient biomedical detector of NaI solution

“…11,12 Thus, the appearance of the PBGs and photon localization grants PCs more sparkle to be the mainstay in many different applications. PCs are designed and fabricated for optical switches and reectors, [13][14][15] communication systems, 16,17 camouage, 18 renewable energy and solar cells, [19][20][21][22][23][24][25] and chemical, physical, and biomedical sensors. [26][27][28][29][30][31][32] However, the transmittivity of PC structures including resonant peaks has a limited response to the variations of some physical, chemical, or biological parameters like temperature, pressure, and concentration.…”

Tailoring Patterned Visible-Light Scattering by Silicon Photonic Crystals

“…Nanoimprint lithography (NIL), as an emerging micro- and nanofabrication technology, has been used to prepare photonic crystals, sensors, transistors, energy conversion devices, photo gratings, and so forth. − NIL offers low cost, high controllability, and wafer-scale production at the same time and thus has more advantages than other methods. ,,,− For example, the anodic aluminum oxide hard mask method usually cannot produce the patterning over large areas (10 cm 2 ), and the pattern parameters are also extremely difficult to maintain . It is possible to realize 4 in.…”