Photonic Band Gap Structures for Solar Energy Generation

In Phase I, Phoebus Optoelectronics will assess the feasibility of using the diverse light management capabilities of plasmonic metamaterials in conjunction with functionalized ruthenium polypyridine compounds to create a novel multi-junction dye-sensitized solar cell that rivals the industry-leading efficiencies of vertically-stacked multi-junction cells but exhibits the much cheaper fabrication economics of single-junction thin film cells. The solar cells to be developed will use cavity modes within subwavelength periodic structures to create light "whirlpool" effects that steer and channel different wavelengths of an incident beam into different spatial areas of a single light-absorbing layer. This layer will be pixelated with periodically-arrayed cavities containing tailored ruthenium polypyridine complexes, the action spectra of which are tuned to absorb light of the wavelength that is steered toward those particular cavities. With such a design, it is possible to absorb >80% of an incoming beam across multiple regions of the solar spectrum within a single-layer device.