Radiative cooling of solar absorbers using a visibly transparent photonic crystal thermal blackbody

Zhu, Linxiao; Raman, Aaswath P.; Fan, Shanhui

doi:10.1073/pnas.1509453112

Title: Radiative cooling of solar absorbers using a visibly transparent photonic crystal thermal blackbody

Journal Article · Mon Sep 21 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1509453112· OSTI ID:1235126

Zhu, Linxiao ^[1]; Raman, Aaswath P. ^[2]; Fan, Shanhui ^[2]

Department of Applied Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305,
Ginzton Laboratory, Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305

A solar absorber, under the sun, is heated up by sunlight. In many applications, including solar cells and outdoor structures, the absorption of sunlight is intrinsic for either operational or aesthetic considerations, but the resulting heating is undesirable. Because a solar absorber by necessity faces the sky, it also naturally has radiative access to the coldness of the universe. Therefore, in these applications it would be very attractive to directly use the sky as a heat sink while preserving solar absorption properties. In this paper, we experimentally demonstrate a visibly transparent thermal blackbody, based on a silica photonic crystal. When placed on a silicon absorber under sunlight, such a blackbody preserves or even slightly enhances sunlight absorption, but reduces the temperature of the underlying silicon absorber by as much as 13 °C due to radiative cooling. Lastly, our work shows that the concept of radiative cooling can be used in combination with the utilization of sunlight, enabling new technological capabilities.

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Research Organization:: Stanford Univ., CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E); National Science Foundation (NSF)

Grant/Contract Number:: AR0000316; ECS-9731293

OSTI ID:: 1235126

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1348350

Journal Information:: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Journal Name: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Vol. 112 Journal Issue: 40; ISSN 0027-8424

Publisher:: Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 387 works

Citation information provided by
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