Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, 2220 Campus Drive, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern University, 2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA.
Nat Commun. 2014 Nov 25;5:5517. doi: 10.1038/ncomms6517.
Quasi-random nanostructures have attracted significant interests for photon management purposes. To optimize such patterns, typically very expensive fabrication processes are needed to create the pre-designed, subwavelength nanostructures. While quasi-random photonic nanostructures are abundant in nature (for example, in structural coloration), interestingly, they also exist in Blu-ray movie discs, an already mass-produced consumer product. Here we uncover that Blu-ray disc patterns are surprisingly well suited for light-trapping applications. While the algorithms in the Blu-ray industrial standard were developed with the intention of optimizing data compression and error tolerance, they have also created quasi-random arrangement of islands and pits on the final media discs that are nearly optimized for photon management over the solar spectrum, regardless of the information stored on the discs. As a proof-of-concept, imprinting polymer solar cells with the Blu-ray patterns indeed increases their efficiencies. Simulation suggests that Blu-ray patterns could be broadly applied for solar cells made of other materials.
准随机纳米结构因其在光子管理方面的应用而受到广泛关注。为了优化这些模式，通常需要非常昂贵的制造工艺来创建预先设计的亚波长纳米结构。虽然准随机光子纳米结构在自然界中很丰富（例如，在结构色中），但有趣的是，它们也存在于蓝光电影光盘中，这是一种已经大规模生产的消费产品。在这里，我们发现蓝光光盘的图案非常适合光捕获应用。虽然蓝光工业标准中的算法是为了优化数据压缩和容错性而开发的，但它们也在最终的媒体光盘上创造了近乎优化的光子管理的岛屿和坑的准随机排列，无论光盘上存储了什么信息。作为概念验证，用蓝光图案压印聚合物太阳能电池确实提高了它们的效率。模拟表明，蓝光图案可以广泛应用于其他材料制成的太阳能电池。
