Applied optics articles within Nature Materials

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  • Comment |

    The success of silicon photonics is a product of two decades of innovations. This photonic platform is enabling novel research fields and novel applications ranging from remote sensing to ultrahigh-bandwidth communications. The future of silicon photonics depends on our ability to ensure scalability in bandwidth, size and power.

    • Michal Lipson

  • Letter |

    Desired for optical sensing or visual communications, structural colour-changing materials are hindered by the lack of scalable manufacturing. Here, by adapting Lippmann photography, large-area manufacturing of colour patterns in photosensitive elastomers is realized.

    • Benjamin Harvey Miller
    • , Helen Liu
    •  & Mathias Kolle

  • Review Article |

    This Review covers the basic physics of thermal emission, ways to engineer the thermal field radiated by hot objects in the far field and applications, such as thermophotovoltaics, radiative cooling, camouflage and privacy.

    • Denis G. Baranov
    • , Yuzhe Xiao
    •  & Mikhail A. Kats

  • Editorial |

    As the family of 2D materials expands to include transition metal dichalcogenides and Xenes, novel fundamental properties and applications come to light.

  • News & Views |

    A miniaturized camera has been developed by integrating a planar metasurface lens doublet with a CMOS image sensor. The metasurface lens doublet corrects the monochromatic aberration and thus delivers nearly diffraction-limited image quality over a wide field of view.

    • Cheng Sun

  • News & Views |

    A rewritable platform for subwavelength optical components is demonstrated by combining surface phonon–polaritons, sustained in a polar dielectric layer, with the switching functionality provided by a phase-change material.

    • Isabelle Staude
    •  & Carsten Rockstuhl

  • Article |

    The photocurrent generated in organic photodetectors and solar cells can be enhanced by increasing light absorption in the active layer. It is now shown that an extended persistence length can increase the oscillator strength of conjugated polymers.

    • Michelle S. Vezie
    • , Sheridan Few
    •  & Jenny Nelson

  • News & Views |

    Ultrathin, flexible and lightweight perovskite solar cells with improved stability in air can now power model airplanes for several hours.

    • Michele Sessolo
    •  & Henk J. Bolink

  • News & Views |

    Solid-state organic materials that convert low-power visible light into higher-energy radiation have been synthesized using metal–organic frameworks. This approach could be used to make polymers that increase the efficiency of photovoltaic devices.

    • Yoan C. Simon
    •  & Christoph Weder

  • News & Views |

    Now that certified energy conversion efficiencies for perovskite solar cells are above 20%, researchers are exploring other critical areas, such as understanding device hysteresis and film growth, as well as the replacement of lead and the development of tandem cell stacks. Cell stability remains a crucial issue.

    • Martin A. Green
    •  & Thomas Bein

  • Research Highlights |

    • Maria Maragkou

  • News & Views |

    When efficient energy transfer under high carrier densities is required, two-dimensional nanoplatelets are the material of choice, combining an exceptional suppression of nonlinear fluorescence quenching with ultrafast transfer capabilities.

    • Iwan Moreels

  • News & Views |

    The migration of ions under the effect of an external electric field locally modifies the doping of organometal halide perovskite films. This is used to reversibly switch the photocurrent direction in very simple photovoltaic architectures.

    • Nam-Gyu Park

  • News & Views |

    Semiconducting quantum dots have been used to harvest triplet excitons produced through singlet fission in organic semiconductors. These hybrid organic–inorganic materials may boost the efficiency of solar cells.

    • Christopher J. Bardeen

  • Letter |

    A strategy to overcome the maximum theoretical efficiency limit of single-junction solar cells is to realize stacked, multi-junction cells that are used under highly concentrated light. Now, a printing-based, scalable approach for the assembly of multi-junction solar cells in concentrator photovoltaic modules that reach a high power conversion efficiency is reported.

    • Xing Sheng
    • , Christopher A. Bower
    •  & John A. Rogers

  • News & Views |

    The macroscopic alignment of dilute dispersions of graphene oxide can be controlled, with extremely large optical sensitivity, through the application of weak electric fields.

    • Ju Young Kim
    •  & Sang Ouk Kim

  • News & Views |

    The energetic and kinetic behaviours of water-oxidation catalysts deposited on semiconductor electrodes are probed in situ, elucidating the junction formed between them, and transforming the design principles of the catalysts.

    • Thomas W. Hamann

  • Article |

    The efficiency of organic blends used for photovoltaic applications depends on their ability to convert photoexcited charges into free holes and electrons. It is now demonstrated that the lowermost energetic states formed at the donor/acceptor interface can reach conversion efficiencies close to 100%, and therefore do not behave as traps for charge carriers.

    • Koen Vandewal
    • , Steve Albrecht
    •  & Alberto Salleo

  • Article |

    Photoelectrochemical water-splitting is a promising route for the renewable production of hydrogen, but trade-offs between photoelectrode stability and efficiency remain problematic. A metal–oxide–semiconductor photoelectrode architecture demonstrates stable and efficient water splitting using narrow-bandgap semiconductors. Substantial improvement in the performance of Si-based photocathodes is achieved by combining a high-quality SiO2 layer and bilayer metal catalysts.

    • Daniel V. Esposito
    • , Igor Levin
    •  & A. Alec Talin

  • News & Views |

    Excitation of organic donor–acceptor systems with high-energy light can produce hot charge-transfer states that are delocalized across the heterojunction and readily dissociate. Two studies now reveal the dynamics of this process and pave the way towards unravelling the details of the molecular landscape that favours fast photocarrier generation.

    • Carlos Silva

  • Letter |

    The standard picture of organic photovoltaics predicts that excitons, which are created under light irradiation, thermalize before dissociation into free electrons and holes. Experimental results and calculations on a low-bandgap polymer–fullerene blend now illustrate the dynamics of hot charge-transfer states and their contribution to charge generation in bulk heterojunctions.

    • G. Grancini
    • , M. Maiuri
    •  & G. Lanzani

  • Article |

    Photocurrent generation in organic solar cells relies on the dissociation of excitons into free electrons and holes at donor/acceptor heterointerfaces. Femtosecond spectroscopy and non-adiabatic simulations on the phthalocyanine–fullerene model system now reveal the relaxation dynamics of hot charge-transfer excitons in this process.

    • Askat E. Jailaubekov
    • , Adam P. Willard
    •  & X-Y. Zhu

  • Letter |

    The appealing electronic properties of the monolayer semiconductor molybdenum disulphide make it a candidate material for electronic devices. The observation of tightly bound trions in this system—which have no analogue in conventional semiconductors—opens up possibilities for controlling these quasiparticles in future optoelectronic applications.

    • Kin Fai Mak
    • , Keliang He
    •  & Jie Shan

  • Article |

    Photoconversion in organic photovoltaic cells, which relies on charge generation at donor/acceptor interfaces, is limited by short exciton-diffusion-lengths. Diluting an electron donor into a wide-energy-gap host material has now led to an ~50% increase in exciton diffusion length and enhanced power conversion efficiencies in planar heterojunction cells compared with optimized devices with an undiluted donor layer.

    • S. Matthew Menke
    • , Wade A. Luhman
    •  & Russell J. Holmes

  • Review Article |

    Metamaterials are man-made structures that allow optical properties to be shaped on length scales far smaller than the wavelength of light. Although metamaterials were initially considered mainly for static applications, this Review summarizes efforts towards an active functionality that enables a much broader range of photonic device applications.

    • Nikolay I. Zheludev
    •  & Yuri S. Kivshar

  • Letter |

    Optical coatings usually consist of many multilayers of thin films to achieve the desired properties. A new approach using interference effects between an absorbing dielectric film and a metallic substrate now enables ultrathin optical coatings that could also find applications as thin solar cells or photodetectors.

    • Mikhail A. Kats
    • , Romain Blanchard
    •  & Federico Capasso

  • Letter |

    Liquid-crystalline order can be templated in a material by refilling a photopolymerized liquid-crystal cast with the material after the non-polymerized portion has been washed out. This approach has now been used to template, in achiral liquid crystals, chiral three-dimensional blue phases with unprecedented thermal stability that are suitable for narrowband mirrorless lasing and switchable electro-optic devices.

    • F. Castles
    • , F. V. Day
    •  & H. J. Coles

  • Editorial |

    Progress in photovoltaic technology could soon mean grid parity for solar electricity. In this issue we highlight scientific as well as science-policy strategies aimed towards achieving this goal.

  • Commentary |

    For decades, solar-cell efficiencies have remained below the thermodynamic limits. However, new approaches to light management that systematically minimize thermodynamic losses will enable ultrahigh efficiencies previously considered impossible.

    • Albert Polman
    •  & Harry A. Atwater

  • Letter |

    Vesicles can rupture as a result of an imbalance in osmotic pressure between their inside and the exterior. Such an ‘osmotic shock’ has now been multiplexed in a coordinated fashion within an ordered material in which a minor component swells and ruptures, thus leading to a porous bicontinuous structure. Such perforated ordered materials may find applications in photonics, optoelectronics and nanofiltration.

    • Paul Zavala-Rivera
    • , Kevin Channon
    •  & Hernan Miguez

  • Letter |

    Polymer-based bulk-heterojunction solar cells have shown some of the highest photoconversion efficiencies in organic photovoltaics, but polymer polydispersity impacts their performance. A small-molecule donor is now reported that enables the fabrication of bulk-heterojunction devices with low acceptor content and photoconversion efficiencies of up to 6.7%.

    • Yanming Sun
    • , Gregory C. Welch
    •  & Alan J. Heeger

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