Stefan Nanz

Exact dipolar moments of a localized electric current distribution

The multipolar decomposition of current distributions is used in many branches of physics. Here, we obtain new exact expressions for the dipolar moments of a localized electric current distribution. The typical integrals for the dipole moments of electromagnetically small sources are recovered as the lowest order terms of the new expressions in a series expansion with respect to the size of the source. All the higher order terms can be easily obtained. We also provide exact and approximated expressions for dipoles that radiate a definite polarization handedness (helicity). Formally, the new exact expressions are only marginally more complex than their lowest order approximations.

On the dynamic toroidal multipoles from localized electric current distributions

We analyze the dynamic toroidal multipoles and prove that they do not have an independent physical meaning with respect to their interaction with electromagnetic waves. We analytically show how the split into electric and toroidal parts causes the appearance of non-radiative components in each of the two parts. These non-radiative components, which cancel each other when both parts are summed, preclude the separate determination of each part by means of measurements of the radiation from the source or of its coupling to external electromagnetic waves. In other words, there is no toroidal radiation or independent toroidal electromagnetic coupling. The formal meaning of the toroidal multipoles is clear in our derivations. They are the higher order terms of an expansion of the multipolar coefficients of electric parity with respect to the electromagnetic size of the source.

Strategy for tailoring the size distribution of nanospheres to optimize rough backreflectors of solar cells

We study the light-trapping properties of surface textures generated by a bottom-up approach, which utilizes monolayers of densely deposited nanospheres as a template. We demonstrate that just allowing placement disorder in monolayers from identical nanospheres can already lead to a significant boost in light-trapping capabilities. Further absorption enhancement can be obtained by involving an additional nanosphere size species. We show that the Power Spectral Density provides limited correspondence to the diffraction pattern and in turn to the short-circuit current density enhancement for large texture modulations. However, in predicting the optimal nanosphere size distribution, we demonstrate that full-wave simulations of just a c-Si semi-infinite halfspace at a single wavelength in the range where light trapping is of main importance is sufficient to provide an excellent estimate. The envisioned bottom-up approach can thus reliably provide good light-trapping surface textures even with simple nanosphere monolayer templates defined by a limited number of control parameters: two nanosphere radii and their occurrence probability.

Tailored substrate topographies by self-organized colloidal particles

We exploit two dimensional arrangements of nanoparticles that serve as templates to fabricate substrates for light-management in optoelectronic devices. Strategies to tailor substrate topographies through self-organization of particles are described.

A Green's function based analytical method for forward and inverse modeling of quasi-periodic nanostructured surfaces

We present an efficient Greens function based analytical method for forward but particularly also for the inverse modeling of light scattering by quasi-periodic and aperiodic surface nanostructures. In the forward modeling, good agreement over an important texture amplitude range is achieved between the developed formalism and exact rigorous calculations on the one hand and angle resolved light scattering measurements of complex quasi-periodic SiO2-Au nanopatterned interfaces on the other hand. Exploiting our formalism, we demonstrate for the first time how the inverse problem of quasi-periodic surface textures for a desired multiresonant absorption response can be expressed in terms of coupled systems of multivariate polynomial equations of the height profiles Fourier amplitudes. A good estimate of the required surface profile can thus be obtained in a computationally cheap manner via solving the multivariate polynomial equations. In principle, the inverse modeling formalism introduced here can be impl...