Two crucial tasks exist for realizing high-efficiency polymer solar cells: increasing the range of the spectral absorption of light and efficiently harvesting photo-generated excitons. In this work, Förster resonance energy ...
Nanophysics
Aug 20, 2013
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Energy consumption is growing rapidly in the 21st century, with rising energy costs and sustainability issues greatly impacting the quality of human life. Harvesting energy directly from sunlight to generate electricity using ...
Optics & Photonics
Aug 14, 2013
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From solar cells to optoelectronic sensors to lasers and imaging devices, many of today's semiconductor technologies hinge upon the absorption of light. Absorption is especially critical for nano-sized structures at the interface ...
Nanophysics
Jul 31, 2013
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It has often been said that solar cells are like artificial versions of the photosynthetic apparatuses found in plants, such as leaves, since both harvest sunlight. But nature's leaves can do something that most solar cells ...
Stanford University scientists have created the thinnest, most efficient absorber of visible light on record. The nanosize structure, thousands of times thinner than an ordinary sheet of paper, could lower the cost and improve ...
Nanomaterials
Jul 18, 2013
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Wildfires produce a witch's brew of carbon-containing particles, as anyone downwind of a forest fire can attest. A range of fine carbonaceous particles rising high into the air significantly degrade air quality, damaging ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 9, 2013
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(Phys.org) —In photovoltaics, there is generally a trade-off in terms of semiconductor thickness, with thicker semiconductors offering better photon absorption and thinner ones offering higher charge carrier extraction ...
Astrophysicists at the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) and the Byurakan Observatory (Armenia) have detected a star of low luminosity which within a matter of moments gave off a flare so strong that it became ...
Astronomy
Jun 14, 2013
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(Phys.org) —Inspired by the way plants grow toward light sources, a phenomenon known as phototropism, bioengineers from the University of California, Berkeley have created a hydrogel that could be manipulated by light.
Nanomaterials
May 29, 2013
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(Phys.org) —It is widely known that the optical properties of certain materials can be modified by using lasers to control the quantum states of their optical electrons. Lasers that can generate ultra-short pulses in the ...
