Nano cubes help increase solar efficiency

Nanoblocks scattered on the gold film absorb light and improve solar efficiency.

The device equipped with a silver cube expands the light absorption area of ​​solar energy.

Scatter and harvest the sun - this is a miracle created by silver nanoblocks that can be used as high-efficiency solar cells, thermal detectors, professional cameras.

The nanometer cubes are scattered and scattered on the polymer coating metal material to form a device. The device absorbs all the sunlight that hits it. Unlike other absorbing devices, it is very convenient and can be produced on a large scale, even for home use.

"Nature" magazine wrote: This material can also be adjusted to capture light waves at specific wavelengths, invented by David Smith and his colleagues. David is a materials scientist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

Distressed light

Absorption absorbers that absorb all (at least most) light, usually using metamaterials - materials that achieve engineering-specific properties cannot be found in nature. They are precisely placed in components that are smaller than the wavelength so they can manipulate light in a strange way.

These tiny components have been painstakingly produced. Using photolithography technology is expensive and complicated in design, so it is difficult to mass produce.

Smith and his team took a different approach. They installed a piece of thin gold on a piece of glass and then sandwiched it between two pieces of organic material to form a polymer layer that is only a few nanometers thick from the gold film. A silver cube with a width of about 74 nanometers spreads over the polymer. on.

Smith explained that when a certain wavelength of light hits a nanometer square, the excited nanometer square electrons oscillate with the gold film electron. The "plasmon resonance" between the gold mode and the nanocubes approximates the light to the sandwich between them, trapping the light.

Different wavelengths of light

The thickness of the polymeric layer is the key, which determines the wavelength of light absorbed. A group of integrated devices have different thicknesses of polymeric layers that can absorb light (mostly) at all wavelengths.

Smith said that his equipment is as perfect as a lithography system, but simpler.

Min Qiu, who works in the similar department of the Royal Institute of Technology in Kista, Sweden, also believes that the use of photolithography is too time-consuming to produce in large quantities. A photolithographic square that can absorb 100 micrometers takes an hour to prepare, and it can take 100 hours to absorb 1 millimeter.

Smith's method is easier to use for large-scale preparation. However, before this method can be applied practically, they must find a way to make all the nanometer cubes the same size, and they are currently slightly different.

Smith is also looking for alternatives to insulation because organic materials may not be able to withstand high temperatures.

Junpeng Guo believes that this method can make metamaterials more practical, and he works in the nanophotonics school at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He said, "This technology has been brought to the lives of ordinary people." For example, nano-square absorbers can be used as solar energy for rooftop water heaters, which is more efficient.

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