This work demonstrates the use of feedback control, coupled with a suitable actuator design, in manufacturing thin films whose surface morphology is characterized by a desired visible light reflectance/transmittance level. The problem is particularly important in the context of thin film manufacturing for thin film solar cells where it is desirable to produce thin films with precisely tailored ...

rapid thermal processing (rtp) has become a key technology for semiconductor device manufacturing in a variety of applications, such as thermal oxidation, annealing, and thin-film growth. hence, understanding the radiative properties of silicon and other relevant materials is essential for the analysis of the thermal transport processes. we have analyzed and calculated the spectral, directional...

This article describes how the dimensions of nanowires affect the transmittance and sheet resistance of a random nanowire network. Silver nanowires with independently controlled lengths and diameters were synthesized with a gram-scale polyol synthesis by controlling the reaction temperature and time. Characterization of films composed of nanowires of different lengths but the same diameter enab...

Using soft-imprint nanolithography, we demonstrate large-area application of engineered two-dimensional polarization-independent networks of silver nanowires as transparent conducting electrodes. These networks have high optical transmittance, low electrical sheet resistance, and at the same time function as a photonic light-trapping structure enhancing optical absorption in the absorber layer ...

We report the performance of polythiophene/fullerene solar cells with a hole-collecting buffer layer that was made using composite films of functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotube (f-MWCNT) and poly(3,4ethylenedioxythiphene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS). The MWCNT was functionalized with carboxyl groups to bestow solubility in a weak base solvent for mixing with PEDOT:PSS. Results sho...

The authors investigate light absorption in organic solar cells in which indium tin oxide (ITO) is replaced by a new metallic architecture (grating) as a transparent electrode. Different from typical metal nanowire gratings, our gratings consist of metal nanowalls with nanoscale footprint and (sub)microscale height [Adv. Mater. 23, 2469 (2011)], thus ensuring high optical transmittance and elec...

Downward solar irradiance at the sea surface, measured on several voyages of an icebreaker in the Southern Ocean, is used to infer transmittance of solar radiation by clouds. Together with surface albedo estimated from coincident hourly sea ice reports, instantaneous cloud radiative forcing and effective cloud optical depth are obtained. Values of “raw cloud transmittance” (trc), the ratio of d...