Wide-angle and broadband solar absorber made using highly efficient large-area fabrication strategy

High performance and cost-effective solar absorbers are crucial for various optical applications, such as solar collection and thermophotovoltaic devices. This study designs and experimentally demonstrates a wide-angle and broadband solar absorber. The proposed absorber is composed of tapered polyimide substrate and Al-Cr-SiO2-Cr-SiO2 thin-film based on the optical interference of the multilayer thin film and excited magnetic resonance of light-trapping structures. The composite process of the colloidal lithography method and magnetron sputtering is employed for efficient fabrication in a large area. The average absorbance is more than 93% from 300 nm to 2500 nm and shows an angular tolerance of up to 60 degrees. The high efficiency and large-area fabrication capability demonstrated by the proposed solar absorber presents future application potential in flexible solar collection devices. (C) 2022 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement

Automated summary

This study designs and experimentally demonstrates a wide-angle and broadband solar absorber. The proposed absorber utilizes the optical interference of multilayer thin film and excited magnetic resonance of light-trapping structures. It exhibits high efficiency and large-area fabrication capability, with good performance in spectral range and angular tolerance.