Berlin 2015 – scientific programme

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HL: Fachverband Halbleiterphysik

HL 54: Focus Session: Nanophotonic concepts and materials for energy harvesting - Plasmonics, transformation optics, upconversion, and beyond II

HL 54.4: Talk

Wednesday, March 18, 2015, 16:15–16:30, EW 201

Metamaterial concepts for energy harvesting applications — •Carsten Rockstuhl^1,2, Aimi Abass², Stephan Fahr³ und Samuel Wiesendanger³ — ¹Institute of Theoretical Solid State Physics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany — ²Institute of Nanotechnology, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76021 Karlsruhe, Germany — ³Institute of Condensed Matter Theory and Solid State Optics, Abbe Center of Photonics, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, 07743 Jena, Germany

Metamaterials provide us unprecedented means to control the propagation of light and to tailor its interaction with matter. The latter aspect is specifically rewarding in the context of energy harvesting applications such as solar cells. There, a referential example that would particularly benefit from a better optical performance is a thin-film solar cell, where the light absorption in a thin layer across an extended spectral domain is poor and enhancing it is a well defined problem. In such situation, metamaterials may provide opportunities for new concepts that can contribute to the solution of this problem. Here, we present our latest results along these lines and show how metamaterial concepts can be used to enhance absorption in solar cells. This concerns the absorption enhancement in solar cells employing Fabry-Perot resonances that are made to be spectrally broad using complementary materials and the use of metamaterial devices perceived in the context of transformation optics for a similar purpose.