Solar Rectennas - Nanosized Rectenna for Solar Cells

Current solar cell technology is based in the photovoltaic effect occurring in semiconductor materials. It is well-known that the conversion efficiency of these types of solar cells is theoretically limited as first noted by Shockley and Queisser (S&Q): a crystalline silicon device is limited to a conversion efficiency of 33.7 %. The theoretical limit of an infinite multi-junction cell is 86 %. A nano-rectenna solar cell, combining submicron antennas with ultra-high frequency diode rectification, would theoretically allow direct conversion of electromagnetic radiation into electricity more efficiently, above the S&Q limit. As referred by Moddel and Grover [1], theoretically the efficiency could approach 100 % for monochromatic light.