Lanfang Li | Searcharxiv

arXiv2019

Spatial and Temporal fluctuation of an ABP in an optical trap

A colloidal suspension of active Brownian particles (ABPs) driven by controllable forces into directed or persistent motions can serve as a model for understanding the biological systems. Experiments and numerical simulations are established to investigate the motions of an ABP, a single, induced-charge electrophoretic (ICEP) metallic Janus particle, confined in a quadratic potential well. On the one hand, 1-D position histograms of the trapped active particle, behaving differently from that of a Boltzmann distribution, reveal a splitting from a single peak of the ABP positional distribution to a bimodal distribution. Decoupling the thermal and non-thermal contributions from the overall histogram is non-trivial. However, the two contributions can be examined by convoluting numerically generated thermal and non-thermal contributions into a full histogram. On the other hand, temporal fluctuations analyzed by the power spectral density (PSD), reveal two unique frequencies characterizing the stiffness of the trap and the rotational diffusion of the particle, respectively. Connections between the spatial and temporal fluctuations are obtained by the separate analysis of the temporal and spatial fluctuations of an ABP trapped in a quadratic potential well. This study reveals how thermal and nonthermal fluctuations play against each other in a confined environment.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2014

Black Silicon Solar Thin-film Microcells Integrating Top Nanocone Structures for Broadband and Omnidirectional Light-Trapping

Recently developed classes of monocrystalline silicon solar microcells (u-cell) can be assembled into modules with characteristics (i.e., mechanically flexible forms, compact concentrator designs, and high-voltage outputs) that would be impossible to achieve using conventional, wafer-based approaches. In this paper, we describe a highly dense, uniform and non-periodic nanocone forest structure of black silicon (bSi) created on optically-thin (30 um) u-cells for broadband and omnidirectional light-trapping with a lithography-free and high-throughput plasma texturizing process. With optimized plasma etching conditions and a silicon nitride passivation layer, black silicon u-cells, when embedded in a polymer waveguiding layer, display dramatic increases of as much as 65.7% in short circuit current, as compared to a bare silicon device. The conversion efficiency increases from 8% to 11.5% with a small drop in open circuit voltage and fill factor.

physics.optics↗