plasmon Archives – The Green Optimistic

Rice University Researchers Use Surface Plasmons to Harvest Light From Lasers: Solar Panels May Benefit

Ovidiu Sandru — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 17:12:04 +0000

Doug Natelson and graduate student Dan Ward, from Rice University, have discovered how to make a light-harvesting antenna from two gold tips separated by a gap only a few nanometers wide. As light source they used a laser, whose rays, once trapped in the gold tips, get concentrated into a tiny space, increasing the light intensity in the gap by a thousand times.

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Plasmonic Thin Film Solar Cells Producing 30% More Electricity Than Non-Treated Ones

Ovidiu Sandru — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 13:12:38 +0000

Kylie Catchpole (image), from the Australian National University in Canberra, working to make thin film solar cells more efficient, discovered that nanoparticles of silver deposited on the surface of a thin-film solar cell would not reflect the incident light back, but instead it would deflect the photons so they bounce back and forth withing the cell, allowing longer wavelengths to be absorbed.

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