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Photonics
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Nonimaging Optics in Solar Energy
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Nonimaging Optics in Solar Energy

A special issue of Photonics (ISSN 2304-6732).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (29 February 2020) | Viewed by 18071

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Roland Winston

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Engineering, University of California, 5200 N. Lake Rd, Merced, CA 95343, USA
Interests: nonimaging optics; solar concentration; thermodynamics optics; light field theory; gauge invariants
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The Special Issue invites manuscripts that document the current state-of-the-art in nonimaging optics.
Nonimaging optics takes the perspective of optics based on the energy and thermodynamic perspective. This perspective may be expanded into the information theory and phase space quantification of etendue.
It has produced and continued to produce innovations in particle science, illumination, cosmic ray measurement, solar concentration, information science, sensors, and even imaging problems.

The Special Issue aims to develop new ideas and applications in the broad area of nonimaging optics. We will consider theoretical, numerical, and experimental papers that cover, but are not limited to, the following topics:

  • Advances in fundamental nonimaging theory, which includes, but is not limited to the following: thermodynamics of geometric optics, geometric flux theory, light field theory, and the role of the vector potential and its gauge properties in optical design.
  • Numerical and theoretical efforts in designing new nonimaging optical systems.
  • Materials utilizing micro/nano scale nonimaging devices.
  • Progress in nonimaging devices; applications include, but are not limited to the following:
    1. Solar concentration
    2. Illumination
    3. Cosmic ray astronomy
    4. Particle physics detectors, particularly Cerenkov particle detectors
    5. Information science and sensors.
    6. Imaging applications such as light field camera

Prof. Dr. Roland Winston
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Photonics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 7165 KiB  
Article
Flowline Optical Simulation to Refractive/Reflective 3D Systems: Optical Path Length Correction
by Angel García-Botella, Lun Jiang and Roland Winston
Photonics 2019, 6(4), 101; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics6040101 - 28 Sep 2019
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2806
Abstract
Nonimaging optics is focused on the study of techniques to design optical systems for the purpose of energy transfer instead of image forming. The flowline optical design method, based on the definition of the geometrical flux vector J, is one of these [...] Read more.
Nonimaging optics is focused on the study of techniques to design optical systems for the purpose of energy transfer instead of image forming. The flowline optical design method, based on the definition of the geometrical flux vector J, is one of these techniques. The main advantage of the flowline method is its capability to visualize and estimate how radiant energy is transferred by the optical systems using the concepts of vector field theory, such as field line or flux tube, which overcomes traditional raytrace methods. The main objective this paper is to extend the flowline method to analyze and design real 3D concentration and illumination systems by the development of new simulation techniques. In this paper, analyzed real 3D refractive and reflective systems using the flowline vector potential method. A new constant term of optical path length is introduced, similar and comparable to the gauge invariant, which produces a correction to enable the agreement between raytrace- and flowline-based computations. This new optical simulation methodology provides traditional raytrace results, such as irradiance maps, but opens new perspectives to obtaining higher precision with lower computation time. It can also provide new information for the vector field maps of 3D refractive/reflective systems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nonimaging Optics in Solar Energy)
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9 pages, 1026 KiB  
Article
High Concentration Photovoltaics (HCPV) with Diffractive Secondary Optical Elements
by Furkan E. Sahin and Musa Yılmaz
Photonics 2019, 6(2), 68; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics6020068 - 12 Jun 2019
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 14802
Abstract
Multi-junction solar cells can be economically viable for terrestrial applications when operated under concentrated illuminations. The optimal design of concentrator optics in high concentration photovoltaics (HCPV) systems is crucial for achieving high energy conversion. At a high geometric concentration, chromatic aberration of the [...] Read more.
Multi-junction solar cells can be economically viable for terrestrial applications when operated under concentrated illuminations. The optimal design of concentrator optics in high concentration photovoltaics (HCPV) systems is crucial for achieving high energy conversion. At a high geometric concentration, chromatic aberration of the primary lens can restrict the optical efficiency and acceptance angle. In order to correct chromatic aberration, multi-material, multi-element refractive elements, hybrid refractive/diffractive elements, or multi-element refractive and diffractive systems can be designed. In this paper, the effect of introducing a diffractive surface in the optical path is analyzed. An example two-stage refractive and diffractive optical system is shown to have an optical efficiency of up to 0.87, and an acceptance angle of up to ±0.55° with a 1600× geometric concentration ratio, which is a significant improvement compared to a single-stage concentrator system with a single material. This optical design can be mass-produced with conventional fabrication methods, thus providing a low-cost alternative to other approaches, and the design approach can be generalized to many other solar concentrator systems with different cell sizes and geometric concentration ratios. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nonimaging Optics in Solar Energy)
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