What if a solar cell's ability to capture light wasn't fixed by the material itself, but was something you could actively design? That's the question at the center of a new study by the MEON group at CENIMAT|i3N, published in Responsive Materials, a leading journal in materials science.
Led by Ivan Santos under the supervision of Professor Manuel Mendes and the co-supervision of Professor Hugo Águas, and developed in collaboration with the University of York and ISC Konstanz, the work shows how photonics, optoelectronic modelling, and light-trapping architectures can be combined to control how light enters, moves through, and is absorbed inside a photovoltaic device.
The study also benefited from key contributions from Miguel Alexandre, António Vicente, Tiago Mateus, Mónica Dyreby, Eva Almeida, and Tomás Calmeiro.
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