A Solar Energy Absorber Design Using Metamaterial Particles for Renewable Energy Solutions

In this paper, a highly efficient solar energy absorber is proposed within the visible light regime, for future integration with renewable energy solutions, for instance solar cells and other smart renewable energy resources. The absorber is based on metamaterials concept and comprises the design of an infinite array of multi-resonant particles that are at the nanoscale. Due to the dimensions of the proposed highly resonating structure being very much smaller than the incoming solar energy operating wavelegnth, the absorber allows for much absorption of sun's radiation energy, more absorbed photons, and hence higher absorption rate. Numerical studies are carried out in this work using COMSOL Multi-Physics solver. After optimizing the metamaterials-based absorber, a unity absorptance value at 540THz was achieved, while at the same time achieved absorptance rates over 80% for other sub-frequency bands within the solar radiation spectrum. The achieved results in this paper are promising to invest on metamaterials for generation and construction of low-cost smart solar cells solutions with highly efficient absorbers.