I will be teaching a short-course at the Fotónica y Óptica Aplicadas a la Nanotecnología in Beunes Aires, Argentina on Tuesday, May 21, 2013. This is partly funded by the OSA’s Traveling Lecturer Program. I will also be giving an invited presentation at VIII TOPFOT (Workshop in Optics and Photophysics), also in Buenes Aires.
The latest issue of Technology Review lists what they call the “10 Breakthrough Technologies.” One of those is ultra-efficient photovoltaics enabled by spectrum-splitting. Our approach that utilizes diffractive micro-optics for spectrum-splitting is perhaps the most practical approach towards that goal!
There is an interesting article re our photovoltaics research in USTAR Pulse, on the Innovation Utah website and on the U facebook page.
I will be giving a presentation at the Micron Research symposium, organized as part of the IEEE Workshop on Microelectronics & Electron Devices on April 12. Hope to see some familiar faces there.
Our long overdue demonstration of the application of the polychromat to improve the performance of photovoltaic devices has been published in Phys Rev Lett. Congratulations to former student, Ganghun Kim for his fantastic achievement. Link to paper here: http://prl.aps.org/pdf/PRL/v110/i12/e123901
We are seeking one talented undergraduate student to join us in developing a novel health-monitoring app for mobile devices. The goal is to extract spectral information from the camera of a mobile device, and utilize this information for health monitoring. Experience in bio-instrumentation and optics is desired. Motivation to commercialize technology is highly desired. Our goal is develop a prototype and commercialize this technology via a spin-off company. Email a resume to rmenon[at]eng.utah.edu.
Peng Wang’s research was recently published in a paper titled “Optimization of periodic nanostructures for enhanced light-trapping in ultra-thin photovoltaics” here. This paper is significant because it points out the use of a nonlinear optimization algorithm for designing nanophotonic devices.
