Berlin 2015 – scientific programme

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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik

O 52: Focus Session: Nanophotonic Concepts and Materials for Energy Harvesting - Plasmonics, Transformation Optics, Upconversion, and beyond

O 52.1: Invited Talk

Wednesday, March 18, 2015, 11:00–11:30, EW 201

Transformation Optics: From Fundamentals to Applications for Energy Harvesting — •Martin Wegener and Martin Schumann — Institute of Applied Physics and Institute of Nanotechnology, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, 76128 Karlsruhe, Germany

Transformation optics can be seen as a versatile tool for designing devices in optics and other areas of physics. In this talk, we start by giving a broad introduction into this concept. A striking paradigm is invisibility cloaking. We briefly review experimental demonstrations in optics, thermodynamics, and mechanics. Next, we discuss a possible application: In order to extract the electrical power from solar cells, metal contacts at the sun-facing surface are required. Unfortunately, these contacts create optically dead areas, reducing the overall current per area by a few percent. We present a solution to this problem by using microstructures that are designed by transformation optics and that cloak the contacts. An experimental proof-of-principle demonstration based on three-dimensional direct-laser-writing optical laser lithography is given.