OSA | 100

OSA Incubator on the Fundamental Limits of Optical Energy Conversion

12-14 November 2014 OSA Headquarters • 2010 Massachusetts Ave. NW • Washington, DC, USA HOSTED BY: Svetlana V. Boriskina, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Jurgen Michel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology;  Alexander Kildishev, Purdue University; Vivian Ferry, University of Minnesota; Jonathan Tong, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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This Incubator brought together experts from various fields including classical and quantum photonics, plasmonics, metamaterials, colloidal chemistry, nano-mechanics as well as material, chemical, and thermal engineering to explore the fundamental limits of optical energy conversion. The Incubator focused on recent advances in the field of renewable energy and sustainability that are directly or indirectly enabled by progress in optical science and engineering research.

Utilizing a combination of invited presentations and facilitated group discussions attendees explored thermodynamic limits of optical energy conversion platforms and searched for new platforms that overcome those limits. Featured topics included:

1. Heat is the new light: expansion of optical system and material design to cover visible and infrared bands with the aims to harvest waste heat and light, to reduce the thermal emission losses of solar harvesting platforms, and to achieve non-contact cooling of optical and electronic circuitry.
2. Photons, meet electrons and phonons: enhancement of the efficiency of the energy harvesting and conversion devices via synergistic optical, electronic and thermal design as well as cross-fertilization of the approaches to bandstructure and energy transport engineering in optical, electronic, and thermal systems.
3. Think small: development of nanoscale devices and nanostructured materials that make use of size quantization effects to manipulate photon and electron density of states and to increase light trapping and energy conversion efficiencies.
4. Mix and match: exploration of hybrid optics-enabled approaches to energy harvesting and conversion such as solar thermophotovoltaics, solar thermoelectrics, PV + solar-thermal, incorporation thermal storage units into solar energy conversion platforms.
5. Bend the curve: assessment of the potential of new light harvesting and conversion technologies to bend the cost and/or efficiency curves and break through the trajectory of the traditional technologies.

 

Keynote Speakers

Gang Chen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
Shanhui Fan, Stanford University, USA
Eli Yablonovitch, University of California, Berkeley, USA
 

Participants

Ashwin Atre, Stanford University, USA Koray Aydin, Northwestern University, USA Matthew Beard, NREL, USA Peter Bermel, Purdue University, USA David Bierman, MIT, USA Howard Branz, ARPA-E, USA Steve Byrnes, Harvard University, USA Wallace Choy, The University of Hong Kong, China Martin Cryan, Bristol University, U.K.             Keivan Esfarjani, Rutgers University, USA Benjamin Franta, Harvard University, USA Sasha Govorov, University of Ohio, USA Urcan Guler, Purdue University, USA Matthew Klug, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA Michael Haney, ARPA-E, USA Krzysztof Kempa, Boston College, USA Minh Le, DOE SunShot, USA Minjoo Larry Lee, Yale University, USA Antti Makinen, Navy Research Laboratory, USA

Miguel A. Modestino, EPFL, Switzerland Jeremy Munday, University of Maryland, USA Michelle Povinelli, University of Southern California, USA Avi Niv, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel Ralph Nuzzo, University of Illinois, USA Mordechai Rothschild, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, USA Carmel Rotschild, Technion, Israel Vladimir Shalaev, Purdue University, USA David Shrekenhamer, Johns Hopkins University, USA  Marin Soljacic, MIT, USA Volker Sorger, George Washington University, USA Myles Steiner, NREL, USA Maria Strojnik, Centro de Investigaciones en Optica AC, Mexico Mohammad Tahersima, George Washington University, USA Lenny Tinker, DOE SunShot, USA Susanna Thon, Johns Hopkins University, USA Jao VandeLagemaat, NREL, USA David Woolf, Physical Sciences, Inc., USA Zongfu Yu, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA Alvin G. Yew, NASA, USA

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