Broadband photodetectors based on enhanced photothermal effect of polymer encapsulated graphene film

A Review on Photothermal Conversion of Solar Energy with Nanomaterials and Nanostructures: From Fundamentals to Applications

“…Different from above-mentioned applications, photothermal sensors are referred devices that the physical property such as electrical resistance changes induced by the photothermal effect. [29][30][31] Usually, the thermistor is a kind of temperature sensor based on the thermal-sensitive resistor. When it is integrated with a light absorber, and placed under the solar light, the light-caused heat will influence its resistance, which can be easily measured according to the changed electric signals.…”

“…However, it only referred to a narrow band response. [77][78][79] To address this challenge, Xiong and her colleagues [29] presented a broadband photodetector (Figure 9d) that integrated a reduced graphene oxide (rGO) layer with a thermistor. By wrapping rGO film onto a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) layer, the sample exhibited a broadband light absorption in 200-1300 nm (Figure 9e), resulting in an excellent photothermal performance.…”

“…[11] Among the solar energy conversion technologies, [12] silicon-based photovoltaic (PV) solar cell has been commercialized and the efficiency photothermal sensing. [29,[55][56][57] Research on this application is also rare and more efforts should be paid in this area. Photothermal deicing technology is still in its infancy, because the related research only has been investigated in the laboratory and ignored practical operating conditions.…”

“…[19,35,36] Very recently, photothermal-derived applications have attracted many researchers' interests and great efforts have been taken to expand the application fields and increase the conversion efficiency based on solar energy conversion. [29,[37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44] Among all the applications, photothermal water evaporation for desalination and water purification has attracted the most attention, owning that freshwater can be directly produced by only using solar energy and it can address the freshwater shortage challenge for many countries. [27,32,33,[45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53] However, the research focusing on other applications has attracted less attention than photothermal water evaporation, which should also be taken equally important attention for making the most of solar energy.…”

“…f) Photo-responsive curves of rGO/PDMS composite film under different solar intensities. (d-f) Reproduced with permission [29]. Copyright 2021, Elsevier.…”