Assessing the influence of structural disorder on the plant epidermal cells’ optical properties: a numerical analysis

Abstract

Many plant surfaces, such as rose petals, display lens-like epidermal cells that are known to assist the collection and focusing of the sunlight. Those cells form an array with a high degree of structural irregularities including disorder in the height and orientation of the cells, and in their arrangement. In this study, we numerically analyze the influence of structural disorder on the optical properties of a 3D modeled epidermal cell array using ray tracing simulations. We conclude that the anti-reflection properties of such structures are almost unperturbed by disorder effects, although the latter can notably broaden the propagation angle distribution of the collected light. Those results also have a direct implication on the design of plant-inspired light management structures. This aspect is illustrated by introducing the example of a thin-film solar cell covered by a light harvesting epidermal cells replica and simulated for each of the three disorder types considered.

Micro‐cone textures for improved light in‐coupling and retroreflection‐inspired light trapping at the front surface of solar modules

“…It is therefore possible to use simulations to optimize the textures. This reinforces former work where simulations have indicated that disorder has little effect on the antireflection properties of this pattern . In Figure A, the experimental und simulation data for the substrate of negligible reflectance is plotted.…”

“…We refer to the latter effect as retroreflection‐inspired light trapping. For both effects, the increased surface transmission and the retroreflection‐inspired light trapping have been thoroughly investigated in simulations for various texture geometries . From these studies, it is clear that one of the most important variables of the texture geometry is the aspect ratio, the ratio between base width and height of a texture element (compare Figure ).…”

Enhanced Photoluminescence in Quantum Dots–Porous Polymer Hybrid Films Fabricated by Microcellular Foaming

“…In analogy to ref. , their arrangement in the lateral direction follows a hexagonal grid incorporating a normally distributed displacement (standard deviation = 1 µm) in an arbitrary (lateral) direction. The distance between nearest neighbors of the underlying hexagonal grid was chosen to be 3.3 µm, which leads to a void density per unit length close to the experimental value of ≈0.3 µm −1 .…”

Bioreplicated coatings for photovoltaic solar panels nearly eliminate light pollution that harms polarotactic insects

“…The main focus of this work is to compare the attractiveness of three types of solar panel surfaces to polarotactic aquatic insects (mayflies and horseflies). Large-area polymeric replicas of the rose petal surface texture were chosen, because we expected that, due to their very rough surface [9,36], they reflect sun/skylight so diffusely (i.e. with low degrees of polarization and not always horizontal direction of polarization), that their attractiveness to polarotactic insects may be minimal.…”