Quasi-random nanostructures have generated great interest for photon management in recent years. Such patterns typically require expensive fabrication processes to create pre-designed, sub-wavelength nanostructures. Interestingly, these patterns can also be found in Blu-ray movie discs, a low-cost consumer product that is mass-produced and readily available. We have discovered that the patterns on all pre-written Blu-ray movie discs are surprisingly well suited for light trapping applications due to their quasi-random nature. The algorithms that encode data found on such Blu-ray discs were developed in order to optimize data compression and error-tolerance. These algorithms coincidentally also create quasi-random arrangements of islands and pits on the final media discs, which are are optimized for photon management over the entire solar spectrum, regardless of the information stored on the discs. As a proof-of-concept, we imprinted polymer solar cells with the Blu-ray patterns, yielding devices with increased absorption and power conversion efficiencies. Our simulation further suggests that Blu-ray patterns could be broadly applied for the enhancement of solar cells made of many other photoactive materials.

Repurposing Blu-ray movie discs as low-cost, quasi-random nanoimprinting templates for photon management

249th National Meeting (2015)

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