Photonic Crystal Structures for Photovoltaic Applications

Abstract

Photonic crystals are artificial structures with a spatial periodicity of dielectric permittivity on the wavelength scale. This feature results in a spectral region over which no light can propagate within such a material, known as the photonic band gap (PBG). It leads to a unique interaction between light and matter. A photonic crystal can redirect, concentrate, or even trap incident light. Different materials (dielectrics, semiconductors, metals, polymers, etc.) and 1D, 2D, and 3D architectures (layers, inverse opal, woodpile, etc.) of photonic crystals enable great flexibility in designing the optical response of the material. This opens an extensive range of applications, including photovoltaics. Photonic crystals can be used as anti-reflective and light-trapping surfaces, back reflectors, spectrum splitters, absorption enhancers, radiation coolers, or electron transport layers. This paper presents an overview of the developments and trends in designing photonic structures for different photovoltaic applications.

Terahertz Polarization Isolator Using Two-Dimensional Square Lattice Tellurium Rod Array

“…PhCs with photonic band gaps (PBGs) also have been used to design multiple devices for photovoltaic applications [ 13 ] like filters [ 14 ], routers [ 15 ], resonators [ 16 ], optical logic gates [ 17 ], adders [ 18 ], phase shifters [ 19 ] and some all-optical memory components [ 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 ]. The PBGs of some different types of PhCs are generally calculated by the plane wave expansion method (PWEM) based on the Bandsolve module in Rsoftwave, which is a mathematical method used to expand a wave function or physical quantity into a linear combination of plane waves.…”