TY - JOUR
T1 - Thermodynamic Upper Bound on Broadband Light Coupling with Photonic Structures
AU - Yu, Zongfu
AU - Raman, Aaswath
AU - Fan, Shanhui
N1 - KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01
Acknowledged KAUST grant number(s): KUSC1-015-21
Acknowledgements: This work was supported in part by the Center for Advanced Molecular Photovoltaics (Grant No. KUSC1-015-21), made by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, and by Department of Energy Grant No. DE-FG02-07ER46426. A. R. also acknowledges the support of the Alberta Scholarship Programs Sir James Lougheed Award of Distinction.
This publication acknowledges KAUST support, but has no KAUST affiliated authors.
PY - 2012/10/23
Y1 - 2012/10/23
N2 - The coupling between free space radiation and optical media critically influences the performance of optical devices. We show that, for any given photonic structure, the sum of the external coupling rates for all its optical modes are subject to an upper bound dictated by the second law of thermodynamics. Such bound limits how efficient light can be coupled to any photonic structure. As one example of application, we use this upper bound to derive the limit of light absorption in broadband solar absorbers. © 2012 American Physical Society.
AB - The coupling between free space radiation and optical media critically influences the performance of optical devices. We show that, for any given photonic structure, the sum of the external coupling rates for all its optical modes are subject to an upper bound dictated by the second law of thermodynamics. Such bound limits how efficient light can be coupled to any photonic structure. As one example of application, we use this upper bound to derive the limit of light absorption in broadband solar absorbers. © 2012 American Physical Society.
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10754/600002
UR - https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.173901
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84868021578&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.173901
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.173901
M3 - Article
C2 - 23215189
SN - 0031-9007
VL - 109
JO - Physical Review Letters
JF - Physical Review Letters
IS - 17
ER -