Yamada Noboru, Ijiro Toshikazu
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Nagaoka University of Technology, Nagaoka, Japan.
Opt Express. 2011 Jul 4;19(14):13140-9. doi: 10.1364/OE.19.013140.
This paper describes the results of exploring photonic structures that behave as wavelength selective concentrators (WSCs) of solar/thermal radiation. An evolutionary algorithm was combined with the finite-difference time-domain method (EA-FDTD) to determine the optimum photonic structure that can concentrate a designated wavelength range of beam solar radiation and diffusive thermal radiation in such a manner that the range matches the photosensitivity of micro photovoltaic and thermophotovoltaic cells. Our EA-FDTD method successfully generated a photonic structure capable of performing wavelength selective concentration close to the theoretical limit. Our WSC design concept can be successfully extended to three-dimensional structures to further enhance efficiency.
