9,807 research outputs found
Broadband enhancement of light harvesting in luminescent solar concentrator
Luminescent solar concentrator (LSC) can absorb large-area incident sunlight,
then emit luminescence with high quantum efficiency, which finally be collected
by a small photovoltaic (PV) system. The light-harvesting area of the PV system
is much smaller than that of the LSC system, potentially improving the
efficiency and reducing the cost of solar cells. Here, based on Fermi-golden
rule, we present a theoretical description of the luminescent process in
nanoscale LSCs where the conventional ray-optics model is no longer applicable.
As an example calculated with this new model, we demonstrate that a slot
waveguide consisting of a nanometer-sized low-index slot region sandwiched by
two high-index regions provides a broadband enhancement of light harvesting by
the luminescent centers in the slot region. This is because the slot waveguide
can (1) greatly enhance the spontaneous emission due to the Purcell effect, (2)
dramatically increase the effective absorption cross-section of luminescent
centers, and (3) strongly improve the quantum efficiency of luminescent
centers. It is found that about 80% solar photons can be ultimately converted
to waveguide-coupled luminescent photons even for a low luminescent quantum
efficiency of 0.5. This LSC is potential to construct a tandem structure which
can absorb nearly full-spectrum solar photons, and also may be of special
interest for building integrated nano-PV applications
Two energy scales and close relationship between the pseudogap and superconductivity in underdoped cuprate superconductors
By measuring the low temperature specific heat, the low energy quasi-particle
excitation has been derived and analyzed in systematically doped
LaSrCuO single crystals. The Volovik's relation predicted
for a d-wave superconductor has been well demonstrated in wide doping regime,
showing a robust evidence for the d-wave pairing symmetry. Furthermore the
nodal gap slope of the superconducting gap is derived and is found
to follow the same doping dependence of the pseudogap obtained from ARPES and
tunnelling measurement. This strongly suggests a close relationship between the
pseudogap and superconductivity. Taking the entropy conservation into account,
we argue that the ground state of the pseudogap phase should have Fermi arcs
with finite density of states at zero K, and the transport data show that it
behaves like an insulator due to probably weak localization. A nodal metal
picture for the pseudogap phase cannot interpret the data. Based on the Fermi
arc picture for the pseudogap phase it is found that the superconducting energy
scale or in underdoped regime is governed by both the maximum gap and the
spectral weight from the Fermi arcs. This suggests that there are two energy
scales: superconducting energy scale and the pseudogap. The superconductivity
may be formed by the condensation of Fermi arc quasiparticles through pairing
by exchanging virtue bosons.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
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