The ability to achieve energy saving in architectures and optimal solar energy utilisation affects the sustainable development of the human race. Traditional smart windows and solar cells cannot be combined into one device for energy saving and electricity generation. A VO2 film can respond to the environmental temperature to intelligently regulate infrared transmittance while maintaining visib...

The vibrant colors of many birds' eggs, particularly those that are blue to blue-green, are extraordinary in that they are striking traits present in hundreds of species that have nevertheless eluded evolutionary functional explanation. We propose that egg pigmentation mediates a trade-off between two routes by which solar radiation can harm bird embryos: transmittance through the eggshell and ...

Air conditioning is an important part in building services world-wide in both commercial and residential buildings. With the general attempt to reduce the usage of fossil fuels and increase the usage of green solutions, the market for solar air conditioning is growing rapidly. Solar air conditioning combines solar thermal absorbers to transfer solar radiation into heat with heat-driven cooling ...

We introduce a new spectral method for the retrieval of optical thickness and effective radius from cloud transmittance that relies on the spectral slope of the normalized transmittance between 1565 nm and 1634 nm, and on cloud transmittance at a visible wavelength. The standard dual-wavelength technique, which is traditionally used in reflectance-based retrievals, is ill-suited for transmittan...

For this deployment, our primary result was columnar water vapor (CWV) obtained from continuous solar transmittance measurements in the 0.94-micron band. In addition, we simultaneously measured aerosol optical depth (AOD) at λ = 380, 450, 525, 864, and 1020 nm. During the intensive operational period (IOP), preliminary results of CWV and AOD were displayed in real time. The result files were ma...

We present a novel approach for modeling the reflectance, transmittance and absorption depth profile of thin-film multilayer structures such as solar cells. Our model is based on the net-radiation method adapted for coherent calculations and is highly flexible while using a simple algorithm. We demonstrate that as a result arbitrary multilayer structures with coherent, partly coherent and incoh...

We report surface-plasmon-polariton-induced suppressed transmission through two-dimensional arrays of isolated metal disks with a thickness comparable to optical skin depth of the metal. A transmittance dip of -17.5 dB is achieved at the resonant wavelength of 1524 nm, compared to -12 dB for closed film. Coupling the light into the surface-plasmon polariton results in enhanced absorption, which...

Optical characterization methods were applied to a series of microcrystalline silicon thin films and solar cells deposited by the very high frequency glow discharge technique. Bulk and surface light scattering effects were analyzed. A detailed theory for evaluation of the optical absorption coefficient a from transmittance, reflectance and absorptance ~with the help of constant photocurrent met...