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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik

O 36: Poster Session II (Organic films and electronics, photoorganics; Nanostructures; Plasmonics and nanooptics, Surface chemical reactions and heterogeneous catalysis, Surface dynamics )

O 36.12: Poster

Dienstag, 12. März 2013, 18:15–21:45, Poster B2

Photovoltaic effect of light carrying orbital angular momentum — •Jonas Wätzel, Andrey Moskalenko, and Jamal Berakdar — Institut für Physik, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Heinrich-Damerow-Str. 4, 06120 Halle (Saale), Germany

Intensive research is devoted to the improvement of the efficiency of the photovoltaic elements by adjusting their material and structure properties. A promising alternative approach might be based on the adjustment of the structural properties of light before it is used to create currents in the cells, e.g. employing twisted light (TL) that is the idea followed in this presentation. TL is created routinely from usual light sources, e.g. via traversing a spiral wave plate that can be deposited onto the solar cell. One may think of enhancing the TL light intensity via self-focusing effect, an issue addressed recently. Strongly-focussed TL beams deliver additional opportunities to manipulate optical properties of nanostructures.

To explore the potential of TL for photovoltaics we investigate how the focussed TL beam influences an electron wave packet in a two-dimensional semiconductor stripe. We show that application of a TL beam results effectively in a voltage drop across the stripe with its sign being determined by the sign of the topological charge of TL. This is a photovoltaic effect that can be registered by measuring the generated voltage drop across the stripe and/or the current increase.