In this study, high energy conversion efficient dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) were successfully fabricated by attaching a double anti-reflection (AR) layer, which is composed of a subwavelength moth-eye structured polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) film and a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) film. An efficiency of up to 6.79% was achieved. The moth-eye structured PMMA film was fabricated by using a...

Optical micro/nano-spherical cavities can be designed to confine light by generating resonances in whispering gallery modes (WGM) and then couple them into the substrate through leaky modes, which can be potentially used in thin film solar cells for absorption enhancements. In this work, the transparent ZnO electrodes in a hollow nanosphere (HNS) structure were proposed as WGM resonators to tra...

Metal-enhanced fluorescence of conjugated polyelectrolytes (CPs) is realized using a simple, green hybrid Ag nanocomposite film. Ag nanoparticles (Ag NPs) are pre-prepared by sodium citrate reduction and incorporated into agarose by mixing to form an Ag-containing agarose film (Ag@agarose). Through variation of the amount of Ag NPs in the Ag@agarose film as well as the thickness of the interlay...

We present a rapid, simple, and scalable approach to achieve superhydrophobic (SH) substrates directly in commodity shrink wrap film utilizing Argon (Ar) plasma. Ar plasma treatment creates a stiff skin layer on the surface of the shrink film. When the film shrinks, the mismatch in stiffness between the stiff skin layer and bulk shrink film causes the formation of multiscale hierarchical wrinkl...

We apply time-resolved MeV electron diffraction to study the electron-lattice energy relaxation in thin film Au-insulator heterostructures. Through precise measurements of the transient Debye-Waller-factor, the mean-square atomic displacement is directly determined, which allows to quantitatively follow the temporal evolution of the lattice temperature after short pulse laser excitation. Data o...

AlN/GaN/sapphire heterostructures with AlN gate film thickness of 3–35 nm are characterized using photoreflectivity ~PR! and photoluminescence ~PL! spectroscopy. Under a critical AlN film thickness, the luminescence from the GaN channel layer near the interface proves to be excitonic. No luminescence related to the recombination of the two-dimensional electron gas ~2DEG! is observed, in spite o...

A highly transparent conductive film was fabricated using self-assembled silver electrodes with anti-reflection (AR) film. The micro pore diameter of sliver nanoparticles (ca 50~60nm in diameter) network electrodes expanded to size of 200-300 μm by the increase of air voids with evaporated water. The transmittance of the silver network electrode increased was drastically increased by the optica...

In this study, a high energy conversion efficient dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) was successfully fabricated by attaching a double anti-reflection (AR) layer which is composed of a subwavelength moth-eye structured polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) film and a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) film. The efficiency is up to 6.79%. The moth-eye structured PMMA film was fabricated by using anodic aluminu...

The Copper Indium Gallium diSelenide (CIGS) thin film solar cells are considered in this chapter. The interest in Cu(In1-x, Gax)Se2 thin film solar cells has increased significantly due to its promising characteristics for high performance and low cost. It is aimed to present an extensive evaluation on CIGS nanocrystalline bulk semiconductor and its application as an absorber layer for thin fil...

We model the first stage of the electronic interaction between an ion and a metal surface covered with a thin dielectric layer. Specifically, we seek to answer two questions. (i) As an ion approaches the surface from far away, does the first electron that it captures originate from the exposed dielectric layer or the metal underneath it? (ii) What is the ion’s distance from the metal when the f...