Harvesting Solar and Thermal Energy with Photonic Nanostructures

Han, Sang Eon

Title:

Harvesting Solar and Thermal Energy with Photonic Nanostructures

dc.contributor.author	Han, Sang Eon
dc.contributor.corporatename	Georgia Institute of Technology. School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
dc.contributor.corporatename	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
dc.date.accessioned	2011-02-02T19:04:42Z
dc.date.available	2011-02-02T19:04:42Z
dc.date.issued	2011-01-19
dc.description	Presented on January 19, 2011 from 4-5 pm in room G011 of the Molecular Science and Engineering Building on the Georgia Tech campus.	en_US
dc.description	Runtime: 58:12 minutes
dc.description.abstract	The energy and environmental challenges we face today require a radical transformation of energy conversion and storage systems to make them highly efficient, environmentally friendly, and inexpensive. Nanotechnology can potentially provide novel solutions for harvesting various forms of renewable energy including solar and thermal energy. In particular, nanophotonics will play a crucial role in solar photovoltaic and thermophotovoltaic systems. For solar photovoltaics, where sunlight is directly converted into electricity, the cost of solar cells needs to be reduced while their efficiency must be enhanced. I will discuss how photonic nanostructures can be used to trap sunlight efficiently and thus reduce the volume of expensive monocrystalline silicon required for silicon solar cells. We will see that the volume of the cells can be decreased by two orders of magnitude, marking a significant reduction in the material cost of silicon solar cells. I will also show how nanostructures can exceed the conventional light trapping limit in solar cells. For thermophotovoltaics, where thermal emission is converted into electricity, control over the thermal emission is a key to increasing the system efficiency. I will discuss how the thermal emission from photonic nanostructures can be tailored in a way that is potentially useful for solar and thermal energy harvesting. While the optimum thermal emission will depend on the specific energy system, I will show that we can achieve the extreme cases of thermal emission. For example, we will see that “laser-like” thermal beaming is possible simply by heating cleverly designed photonic nanostructures. I will conclude the talk by discussing how nanophotonics will advance the frontiers of renewable energy harvesting.	en_US
dc.format.extent	58:12 minutes
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/1853/36802
dc.language.iso	en_US	en_US
dc.publisher	Georgia Institute of Technology	en_US
dc.relation.ispartofseries	School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Seminar Series	en_US
dc.relation.ispartofseries	School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Seminar Series
dc.subject	Energy	en_US
dc.subject	Solar	en_US
dc.subject	Thermal	en_US
dc.title	Harvesting Solar and Thermal Energy with Photonic Nanostructures	en_US
dc.type	Moving Image
dc.type.genre	Lecture
dspace.entity.type	Publication
local.contributor.corporatename	School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
local.contributor.corporatename	College of Engineering
local.relation.ispartofseries	School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Seminar Series
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relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication	7c022d60-21d5-497c-b552-95e489a06569
relation.isSeriesOfPublication	388050f3-0f40-4192-9168-e4b7de4367b4