Silica aerogel granulate material for thermal insulation and daylighting

Silica aerogel granulate is a nanostructured material with high solar transmittance and low thermal conductivity. These properties offer exciting applications in building envelopes. One objective of the joint R&D project ISOTEG at ZAE Bayern was to develop and characterize a new glazing element based on granular silica aerogel. Heat transfer coefficients of less than 0.4 W/(m² K) and a total solar energy transmittance of 35% for the whole glazing unit were achieved. The glazing has a thickness of less than 50 mm. Another application for granular silica aerogel is, for example, in solar collectors.The thermal properties of the glazing as well as the optical and thermal properties of the granular aerogels are presented here. The solar transmittance of a 10 mm packed bed of silica aerogel was 53% for semi-translucent spheres and 88% for highly translucent granulate. In our heat transfer experiments the gas pressure, external pressure load, temperature and gas filling were varied. The various thermal conductivity values measured for the glazing and collector applications were compared to the values calculated using two different packed bed models. For the gas-dependent measurements the intergranular voids in the granulate were 1.0 ± 0.1 mm before loading the packed bed, 0.3 ± 0.1 mm at an external load of 3.2 bar (3.2 × 10⁵ Pa) and 0.6 ± 0.1 mm after release.A direct radiative conduction of λ_direct = 4.5 ± 0.5 × 10⁻³ W m⁻¹ K⁻¹ was obtained.     

Comparative study of different approaches of multicrystalline silicon texturing for solar cell fabrication

Alkali etchant cannot produce uniformly textured surface to generate satisfactory open circuit voltage as well as the efficiency of the multi-crystalline silicon (mc-Si) solar cell due to the unavoidable grain boundary delineation with higher steps formed between successive grains of different orientations during alkali etching of mc-Si. Acid textured surface formed by using chemicals with HNO₃–HF–CH₃COOH combination generally helps to improve the open circuit voltage but always gives lower short circuit current due to high reflectivity. Texturing mc-Si surface without grain boundary delineation is the present key issue of mc-Si research. We report the isotropic texturing with HF–HNO₃–H₂O solution as an easy and reliable process for mc-Si texturing. Isotropic etching with acidic solution includes the formation of meso- and macro-porous structures on mc-Si that helps to minimize the grain-boundary delineation and also lowers the reflectivity of etched surface. The study of surface morphology and reflectivity of different mc-Si etched surfaces has been discussed in this paper. Using our best chemical recipe, we are able to fabricate mc-Si solar cell of 14% conversion efficiency with PECVD AR coating of silicon nitride film. The isotropic texturing approach can be instrumental to achieve high efficiency in mass production using relatively low-cost silicon wafers as starting material with the proper optimization of the fabrication steps.     

Influence of sputtering conditions on the solar and luminous optical properties of amorphous LixWoy thin films

Thin films of amorphous tungsten oxide were deposited by sputtering onto glass substrates coated by conductive indium–tin oxide. The films were sputtered at different oxygen-to-argon flow ratios with different pressure and power. Elastic recoil detection analysis determined the density and the stoichiometry. X-ray diffraction measurements showed that the films were amorphous. The films were electrochemically intercalated with lithium ions. At several intercalation levels of each film, the optical reflectance and transmittance were measured in the wavelength range 0.3–2.5 μm. We study the effect of various sputtering conditions on the coloration efficiency of the films and on the luminous and solar optical properties. The O₂/Ar ratio and the sputter pressure determine to a large extent the optical absorption. As-deposited sputtered tungsten oxide with sufficiently little oxygen exhibits an absorption peak similar to the case of lithium intercalation.     

Preparation of c-axis-oriented zinc-oxide thin films and the study of their microstructure and optical properties

c-axis-oriented zinc-oxide (ZnO) thin films were prepared on microscope glass substrates by sol–gel deposition. A homogeneous and stable solution was prepared by dissolving zinc-acetate 2-hydrate (ZnAc) in 2-propanol and diethanolamine. Crystalline ZnO thin films were obtained following an annealing process at temperatures between 450°C and 550°C for 1 h. Increasing annealing temperature increased the grain size and the c-axis orientation. The X-ray diffraction analysis revealed single-phase ZnO with hexagonal zincite structure. The absorption edge analysis revealed that the optical band-gap energy for the films were between 3.26 and 3.28 eV and electronic transition was direct transition type.     

Optical properties of alumina ceramics as a substrate of thin film solar cells

For full understanding of the optical properties of alumina ceramics which are used as a substrate of thin film c-Si solar cells, we carried out computer simulations of diffuse reflectance and measurements of angle-resolved reflectance. As the result of the computer simulations, we obtained a theoretical expression for the reflectance properties of alumina ceramics with flat surface. The expression can be applied for the measured reflectance of alumina ceramics with rough surface when an effect of surface condition was taken into account.     

Development of miniature optical fiber hybrid WDM coupler employing the FBT technology

An innovative technique for fabricating the optical fiber hybrid wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) coupler is presented. The device is comprised of two components, a wavelength division multiplexer and an optical fiber coupler, in a miniature stainless steel tube. The outstanding features of the ultra-low polarization dependent loss (PDL) under 0.05 dB and the compact size of ∅3.5 × 65 mm for bare-fiber type of package are accomplished by using the pioneering methodology combining the main techniques of twisted and parallel fusion processes in the fused biconical taper (FBT) technology. Besides, its miniaturization is more competitive in both of the applications of optical communication and sensing systems where a compact-sized package is required for extending the flexibility of installation.     

Time-spreading wavelength-hopping optical CDMA system using EWO and TCM

In this paper, time-spreading wavelength-hopping optical CDMA system using trellis coded modulation scheme is investigated. The carrier hopping prime code and its shifted version are employed as signature sequences. Since the carrier hopping prime code is a symmetric code, the out of phase autocorrelation is zero. Applying the orthogonality of the signature sequences, the ternary transmission mechanism can be achieved. The proposed coding scheme is simple in both transmitter and receiver. As the multiple access interference and beat noise are the major deterioration of system performance, using coding scheme is an effective way to reduce the error floor. The numerical results reveal that the proposed coding scheme can significantly improve the system performance.     

数字锁相技术在光纤衰减检测中的应用

光纤衰减是光纤传输性能测试的基本参量。本文通过对光纤衰减测试原理的分析,利用数字锁相技术,通过以计算机为核心,高精度的AD转换、配以DSP技术的数字信号处理,实现了长距离光纤衰减的检测,并通过测试结果比对表明测试系统切实可行。     

888nm半导体抽运的60W皮秒激光振荡器模型

为了建立一个基于888nm半导体抽运的高平均功率和高效率皮秒激光振荡器的理论模型,采用模拟计算方法和谐振腔理论、ABCD定律、自洽条件以及连续被动锁模条件,利用激光晶体Nd:YVO4对波长888nm半导体抽运源的吸收特性和元件的相关参量、合适的腔模参量、实现稳定锁模的参量进行了理论分析和计算,并通过以上研究和模拟计算得到了皮秒振荡器模型的相关数据。结果表明,在120W的抽运功率下,激光器可以输出约61.5W的皮秒激光,光光转换效率51.3%。这一理论模型的建立对高平均功率和高效率皮秒激光振荡器的实验研究起着指导作用。     

FTTx无源光网络路在何方

这里分析了主流的光纤到户（FTTH）和光纤到楼（FTTB）两种光纤接入模式的网络结构及模型的基础上,详细论述比较了以太网无源光网络（EPON）和吉比特的无源光网络（GPON）接入技术性能,对10G以太网无源光网络（10G EPON）、波分复用无源光网络（WDM-PON）、长距离无源光网络（LR-PON）等无源光网络（xPON）新技术进行了分析研究,提出了FTTB接入模式的网络改造以及吉比特的无源光网络（EPON）向10G以太网无源光网络（10G EPON）平滑演进的发展方向和具体的解决方案。