Diffraction gratings are effective ways of increasing the light absorption of solar cells and the light extraction of light-emitting diodes. In this paper, we show that simplified modal analysis can be used as a conceptual model for understanding the behavior of the diffuse transmittance of lamellar diffraction gratings on infinite substrates. We use simplified modal analysis to predict the opt...

Photovoltaics, which utilizes the largest possible energy source to generate electricity, represents one of the most attractive approaches towards renewable energy future. However, the cost of current solar electricity is still too high. Future photovoltaic technologies need to have high power conversion efficiency and can be fabricated with low cost. In this project, we propose novel nanocone ...

Providing green energy for human consumption has become a main goal of industry and research in recent decades. Photovoltaic technology is a main candidate for this aim but it requires price reduction and efficiency increase to enable large scale commercialization. To comply with the cost effectiveness, the cells can be made very thin to reduce material consumption and materials with well-estab...

Background Claretian Associates, a non-profit community development organization, and South Chicago Workforce, a non-profit builder and contractor, have teamed to create 26 efficient, healthy, sustainable, affordable homes in South Chicago, IL. These homes are constructed with structural insulated panels (SIPs), are heated with condensing furnaces, utilize sealedcombustion water heaters, and co...

A solar cell or photovoltaic cell is a device which generates electricity directly from visible light. However, their efficiency is fairly low. So, the solar cell costs expensive according to other energy resources products. Several factors affect solar cell efficiency. This paper presents the most important factors that affecting efficiency of solar cells. These effects are cell temperature, M...

Nanowires (NWs) are recently used in several sensor or actuator devices to improve their ordered characteristics. Silicon nanowire (Si NW) is one of the most attractive one-dimensional nanostructures semiconductors because of its unique electrical and optical properties. In this paper, silicon nanowire (Si NW), is synthesized and characterized for application in photovoltaic device. Si NWs are ...

Photovoltaic light trapping theory and experiment do not always clearly demonstrate how much useful optical absorption is enhanced, as opposed to parasitic absorption that cannot improve efficiencies. In this work, we develop a flexible flux plane method for capturing these parasitic losses within finite-difference time-domain simulations, which was applied to three classical types of light tra...

High-cadence, multiwavelength optical observations of a solar active region (NOAA 10969), obtained with the Swedish Solar Telescope, are presented. Difference imaging of white light continuum data reveals a white light brightening, 2 min in duration, linked to a co-temporal and co-spatial C2.0 flare event. The flare kernel observed in the white light images has a diameter of 300 km, thus render...