Spanning transparent microelectrodes by direct ink writing; epitaxial growth of GaAs through a 3D photonic crystal

LMI EFRC Team Meeting

The LMI-EFRC is devoted to new designs and materials for photovoltaics that utilize the entire solar spectrum

Thin film, flexible GaAs solar cell

Light-driven synthesis and pattern formation

The LMI team is working together to investigate new photonic nanostructures and light absorbers for solar energy conversion

Flexible downshifting luminescent concentrators with arrays of silicon microsolar cells

Research Groups

Research Group 3: Transformation Optics for Photovoltaics

RG Leader: Xiang Zhang

Affiliated PIs: Harry Atwater, Paul Braun, Jennifer Lewis, Albert Polman, John Rogers

Refractive index design via porous etched silicon (X. Zhang, LBNL)

Transformation optics is a recent approach to control electromagnetic power flow in materials in which the complex dielectric function is spatially inhomogeneous in an optical medium. This paradigm has already led to cloaking of two dimensional scattering objects and transformation optical designs suggest the possibility to create a ‘black hole’ perfect broadband light absorber using materials with spatially inhomogeneous refractive index profiles.

RG-3 Research Projects include:

Photo-electrochemical Silicon Etching to Fabricate 2D and 3D Gradient Index Devices (Zhang, Braun)
Transfer of Preformed 3D Photonic Crystals onto Solar Cells (Braun)
A single-layer, angle and polarization independent negative index metamaterial at visible frequencies (Atwater, Polman)
Printing 3D transformation optics (Braun, Rogers, Zhang)
Light trapping in whispering gallery mode sphere arrays (Atwater, Braun)
Dielectric resonant guided wave networks (Atwater, Braun, J. Lewis)