Researchers are building light traps for more solar energy, lenses and mirrors prevent the beam from escaping, and reflections are suppressed by wave interference.

Researchers are building light traps for more solar energy, lenses and mirrors prevent the beam from escaping, and reflections are suppressed by wave interference.

Vienna, Jerusalem, 25 August 2022

A very special beam of light prevents itself from leaving the room it has ‘entered’. full # retweet We have researchers Technical University of Vienna (TU Vienna) and Hebrew #University Jerusalem development. The trap could play an important role in the world’s electricity supply in the future #energy to play.

Thin layers stand across

It does not matter if it is in #Photosynthesis or in one #PV Attachments: World Health Organization #light If you want to use it efficiently, you need to absorb it as completely as possible. However, this is difficult if the absorption occurs in a thin layer of the material that normally allows a large portion of the light to pass through. Researchers in Austria and Israel solved the problem by arranging mirrors and lenses around a thin film in which light is captured, which directs the beam of light in a circle. In the end, it interferes with itself in such a way that it prevents itself and cannot get out of the system.

So the light has no choice but to be absorbed by the thin film – there is no other way out. This absorption amplifier method, now presented in Science, is the result of a successful collaboration between two teams: the idea was proposed by physics professor Uri Katz from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and developed with Stefan Reuter from the University of Vienna in Technology. The experimental field was in Jerusalem, and the theoretical accounts came from Vienna.

More research is required

» Light is easily absorbed when it hits a hard object, like a thick black woolen sweater. But in many technical applications you only have a thin layer of material and you want to absorb light in that particular layer,” says Rotter. So far there have been attempts to improve material absorption: for example, the material is sandwiched between two mirrors. The light bounces back and back between the two mirrors, crossing the material each time, giving it a greater chance of being absorbed.

However, the mirrors used in the process must not be perfect – one of them must be partially transparent, otherwise the light will not be able to penetrate the area between the two mirrors at all. However, this also means that when light hits this partially transparent mirror, part of it is lost. To prevent exactly this, the researchers used the wave properties of light. Through our method we can all #Thoughts By the interference of the wave”, says Katz. In order to be able to use the trap practically for example #solar energy However, research and development work is still needed to produce it more effectively.