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

Linxiao Zhu, Aaswath P. Raman, Shanhui Fan

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

540 Scopus citations

Abstract

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. Here 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. Our work shows that the concept of radiative cooling can be used in combination with the utilization of sunlight, enabling new technological capabilities.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)12282-12287
Number of pages6
JournalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Volume112
Issue number40
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 6 2015

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General

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