Sergey Eyderman

Waveguide structures with antisymmetric gain/loss profile

Waveguide structures with an antisymmetric gain/loss profile were studied more than a decade ago as benchmark tests for beam propagation methods. These structures attracted renewed interest, recently e.g. as photonic analogues of quantum mechanical structures with parity-time symmetry breaking. In this paper, properties of both weakly and strongly guiding two-mode waveguides and directional couplers with balanced loss and gain are described. Rather unusual power transmission in such structures is demonstrated by using numerical methods. We found that the interface between media with balanced loss and gain supports propagation of confined unattenuated TM polarized surface wave and we have shown that its properties are consistent with the prediction of a simple analytical model.

Solar light trapping in slanted conical-pore photonic crystals: Beyond statistical ray trapping

We demonstrate that with only 1 μm, equivalent bulk thickness, of crystalline silicon, sculpted into the form of a slanted conical-pore photonic crystal and placed on a silver back-reflector, it is possible to attain a maximum achievable photocurrent density (MAPD) of 35.5 mA/cm2 from impinging sunlight. This corresponds to absorbing roughly 85% of all available sunlight in the wavelength range of 300–1100 nm and exceeds the limits suggested by previous “statistical ray trapping” arguments. Given the AM 1.5 solar spectrum and the intrinsic absorption characteristics of silicon, the optimum carrier generation occurs for a photonic crystal square lattice constant of 850 nm and slightly overlapping inverted cones with upper (base) radius of 500 nm. This provides a graded refractive index profile with good anti-reflection behavior. Light trapping is enhanced by tilting each inverted cone such that one side of each cone is tangent to the plane defining the side of the elementary cell. When the solar cell is packaged with silica (each pore filled with SiO2), the MAPD in the wavelength range of 400–1100 nm becomes 32.6 mA/cm2 still higher than the Lambertian 4n2 benchmark of 31.2 mA/cm2. In the near infrared regime from 800 to 1100 nm, our structure traps and absorbs light within slow group velocity modes, which propagate nearly parallel to the solar cell interface and exhibit localized high intensity vortex-like flow in the Poynting vector-field. In this near infrared range, our partial MAPD is 10.9 mA/cm2 compared to a partial MAPD of 7 mA/cm2 based on “4n2 statistical ray trapping.” These results suggest silicon solar cell efficiencies exceeding 20% with just 1 μm of silicon.

Coupled optical and electrical modeling of solar cell based on conical pore silicon photonic crystals

We compare the efficiency of thin film photonic crystal solar cells consisting of conical pores and nanowires. Solving both Maxwells equations and the semiconductor drift-diffusion in each geometry, we identify optimal junction and contact positions and study the influence of bulk and surface recombination losses on solar cell efficiency. We find that using only 1 μm of silicon, sculpted in the form of an inverted slanted conical pore photonic crystal film, and using standard contact recombination velocities, solar power conversion efficiency of 17.5% is obtained when the carrier diffusion length exceeds 10 μm. Reducing the contact recombination velocity to 100 cm s−1 yields efficiency up to 22.5%. Further efficiency improvements are possible (with 1 μm of silicon) in a tandem cell with amorphous silicon at the top.

Achieving an Accurate Surface Profile of a Photonic Crystal for Near-Unity Solar Absorption in a Super Thin-Film Architecture

In this work, a teepee-like photonic crystal (PC) structure on crystalline silicon (c-Si) is experimentally demonstrated, which fulfills two critical criteria in solar energy harvesting by (i) its Gaussian-type gradient-index profile for excellent antireflection and (ii) near-orthogonal energy flow and vortex-like field concentration via the parallel-to-interface refraction effect inside the structure for enhanced light trapping. For the PC structure on 500-μm-thick c-Si, the average reflection is only ∼0.7% for λ = 400-1000 nm. For the same structure on a much thinner c-Si ( t = 10 μm), the absorption is near unity (A ∼ 99%) for visible wavelengths, while the absorption in the weakly absorbing range (λ ∼ 1000 nm) is significantly increased to 79%, comparing to only 6% absorption for a 10-μm-thick planar c-Si. In addition, the average absorption (∼94.7%) of the PC structure on 10 μm c-Si for λ = 400-1000 nm is only ∼3.8% less than the average absorption (∼98.5%) of the PC structure on 500 μm c-Si, while the equivalent silicon solid content is reduced by 50 times. Furthermore, the angular dependence measurements show that the high absorption is sustained over a wide angle range (θinc = 0-60°) for teepee-like PC structure on both 500 and 10-μm-thick c-Si.

Near perfect solar absorption in ultra-thin-film GaAs photonic crystals

We present designs that enable a significant increase of solar absorption in ultra-thin (100–300 nm) layers of gallium arsenide. In the wavelength range from 400–860 nm, 90–99.5% solar absorption is demonstrated depending on the photonic crystal architecture used and the nature of the packaging. It is shown that using only two hundred nanometer equivalent bulk thickness of gallium arsenide, forming a slanted conical-pore photonic crystal (lattice constant 550 nm, pore diameter 600 nm, and pore depth 290 nm) packaged with SiO2 and deposited on a silver back-reflector, one can obtain a maximum achievable photocurrent density (MAPD) of 26.3 mA cm−2 from impinging sunlight. This corresponds to 90% absorption of all available sunlight in the wavelength range 400–860 nm. Our optimized photonic crystal design suggests that increasing the equivalent bulk thickness of GaAs beyond 200 nm leads to almost no improvement in solar absorption, while reducing it to 100 nm causes less than 10% reduction in MAPD. Light-trapping in the 200 nm conical pore photonic crystal provides solar absorption exceeding the Lambertian limit over the range of 740–840 nm. The angular dependence of the MAPD for both S- and P-polarizations is also investigated and shows no substantial degradation in the range 0–30°. More dramatic light-trapping and solar absorption is demonstrated in photonic crystals consisting of conical nanowires. Using 200 nm equivalent bulk thickness of GaAs (lattice constant 500 nm, cone base diameter 200 nm, and cone height 4.77 μm) packaged in SiO2 and deposited on a silver back-reflector, an MAPD of nearly 27 mA cm−2 is found. This corresponds to absorption of 96% of all available sunlight in the wavelength range 400–860 nm. A clear separation of the solar spectrum along the length of each nanowire is also evident. In the absence of SiO2 packaging, this MAPD increases to 28.8 mA cm−2, in excess of the corresponding Lambertian limit of 28.2 mA cm−2. Most remarkably we find that, if the equivalent bulk thickness of GaAs is increased to 300 nm, nearly 100% of relevant sunlight is absorbed by the conical nanowire photonic crystal.

Light-trapping optimization in wet-etched silicon photonic crystal solar cells

We demonstrate, by numerical solution of Maxwells equations, near-perfect solar light-trapping and absorption over the 300–1100 nm wavelength band in silicon photonic crystal (PhC) architectures, amenable to fabrication by wet-etching and requiring less than 10 μm (equivalent bulk thickness) of crystalline silicon. These PhCs consist of square lattices of inverted pyramids with sides comprised of various (111) silicon facets and pyramid center-to-center spacing in the range of 1.3–2.5 μm. For a wet-etched slab with overall height H = 10 μm and lattice constant a = 2.5 μm, we find a maximum achievable photo-current density (MAPD) of 42.5 mA/cm2, falling not far from 43.5 mA/cm2, corresponding to 100% solar absorption in the range of 300–1100 nm. We also demonstrate a MAPD of 37.8 mA/cm2 for a thinner silicon PhC slab of overall height H = 5 μm and lattice constant a = 1.9 μm. When H is further reduced to 3 μm, the optimal lattice constant for inverted pyramids reduces to a = 1.3 μm and provides the MAPD ...

Using metallic photonic crystals as visible light sources

In this paper we study numerically and experimentally the possibility of using metallic photonic crystals (PCs) of different geometries (log-piles, direct and inverse opals) as visible light sources. It is found that by tuning geometrical parameters of a direct opal PC one can achieve substantial reduction of the emissivity in the infrared along with its increase in the visible. We take into account disorder of the PC elements in their sizes and positions, and get quantitative agreement between the numerical and experimental results. We analyze the influence of known temperature-resistant refractory host materials necessary for fixing the PC elements, and find that PC effects become completely destroyed at high temperatures due to the host absorption. Therefore, creating PC-based visible light sources requires that low-absorbing refractory materials for embedding medium be found.

Light-trapping and recycling for extraordinary power conversion in ultra-thin gallium-arsenide solar cells

We demonstrate nearly 30% power conversion efficiency in ultra-thin (~200 nm) gallium arsenide photonic crystal solar cells by numerical solution of the coupled electromagnetic Maxwell and semiconductor drift-diffusion equations. Our architecture enables wave-interference-induced solar light trapping in the wavelength range from 300–865 nm, leading to absorption of almost 90% of incoming sunlight. Our optimized design for 200 nm equivalent bulk thickness of GaAs, is a square-lattice, slanted conical-pore photonic crystal (lattice constant 550 nm, pore diameter 600 nm, and pore depth 290 nm), passivated with AlGaAs, deposited on a silver back-reflector, with ITO upper contact and encapsulated with SiO2. Our model includes both radiative and non-radiative recombination of photo-generated charge carriers. When all light from radiative recombination is assumed to escape the structure, a maximum achievable photocurrent density (MAPD) of 27.6 mA/cm2 is obtained from normally incident AM 1.5 sunlight. For a surface non-radiative recombination velocity of 103 cm/s, this corresponds to a solar power conversion efficiency of 28.3%. When all light from radiative recombination is trapped and reabsorbed (complete photon recycling) the power conversion efficiency increases to 29%. If the surface recombination velocity is reduced to 10 cm/sec, photon recycling is much more effective and the power conversion efficiency reaches 30.6%.

Solar light trapping in slanted conical-pore photonic crystals

We show that with only one micron, equivalent bulk thickness, of crystalline silicon, sculpted into the form of a slanted conical-pore photonic crystal and placed on a silver back-reflector, it is possible to attain a maximum achievable photocurrent density (MAPD) of 35.5mA/cm2 from impinging sunlight [1]. This corresponds to absorbing roughly 85% of sunlight in the wavelength range 300-1100nm and exceeds the Lambertian limit suggested by previous “statistical ray trapping” arguments. When the silicon volume is reduced to an equivalent thickness of only 380nm, the MAPD remains as high as 32mA/cm2. This suggests the possibility of very high efficiency, ultra-thin-film silicon solar cells. Our one-micron structure consists of a photonic crystal square lattice constant of 850nm and slightly overlapping inverted cones with upper (base) radius of 500nm and 1600nm cone depth. When the solar cell is packaged with silica (each pore filled with SiO2 and modulation on the top is added), the MAPD in the wavelength range of 400-1100nm becomes 32.6mA/cm2 still higher than the Lambertian 4n2 benchmark of 31.2mA/cm2. Thinner structures are considered by keeping the lattice constant and cone radius fixed but by decreasing the cone depth. The MAPD dependence on the overall depth of nanopores indicates that using roughly half the amount of silicon leads to only about 5% drop in the MAPD. In the near infrared regime light is absorbed within slow group velocity modes, that propagate nearly parallel to the interface and exhibit localized high intensity vortex-like flow in the Poynting vector-field.

One-way EM waveguide formed at the interface between metal and uniformly magnetized two-dimensional photonic crystal fabricated from magneto-optic material

We have demonstrated numerically that a waveguide formed by the interface of a metal and uniformly magnetized twodimensional photonic crystal fabricated from a transparent dielectric magneto-optic (MO) material possesses a one-way frequency range where only a forward propagating surface plasmon polariton (SPP) mode is allowed to propagate. In contrast to an analogous waveguide proposed by Yu1 the non-reciprocity at the interface is introduced by the MO properties of the photonic crystal material and not by applying an unrealistically high static magnetic field (up to 1 T) on metal described by free-electron Drude form of the dielectric function. The considered magnetic material is Bismuth Iron Garnet (BIG, Bi3Fe5O12), a ferrimagnetic oxide which may be easily magnetically saturated by fields of the order of tens of mT. Therefore, this configuration allows to achieve sizable one-way bandwidth by using significantly smaller values of the external magnetic field which makes such a waveguide favorable for design of diode-like elements in optical integrated circuits. By using a novel MO aperiodic Fourier Modal Method (MO a-FMM) to calculate the band structure of this magneto-plasmonic photonic crystal waveguide we have proven the existence of one-way SPP bands within the optical wavelength.To investigate transport properties of the structures within this frequency range we have implemented two finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) methods, namely ADE2 and that based on Z-transforms3 that allow calculating the propagation of EM waves through media with full tensorial magneto-optic permittivity. We provide numerical evidence confirming suppression of disorder-induced backscattering in the one-way waveguide.