Abstract
This work presents investigations about the realization and modelization of rectenna solar cells. Rectennas are antennas coupled with a rectifier to convert the alternative current originating from the antenna into direct current that can be harvested and stored. By reducing the size of the antennas to the nanoscale, interactions with visible and near-infrared light become possible. If techniques such as nanoimprint lithography make possible the fabrication of sufficiently small plasmonic structures to act as optical antennas, the concept of rectenna still faces several challenges. One of the most critical point is to achieve rectification at optical frequencies. To address this matter, we propose to use molecular diodes (ferrocenyl-alkanethiol) that can be self-assembled on metallic surfaces such as gold or silver. In this paper, we present a basic rectenna theory as well as finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) optical simulations of plasmonic structures and experimental results of both nanoimprint fabrication of samples and characterizations by electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and cyclic voltammetry techniques.
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Acknowledgements
This work was carried out thanks to the support of the A*MIDEX project (No. ANR-11-IDEX-0001-02) funded by the “Investissements d’Avenir” French Government program and managed by the French National Research Agency (ANR). We thank the Ministere de l’Education Nationale de la Recherche et des Technologies (MENRT) for the PhD grant accorded to Clément A. Reynaud.
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Reynaud, C.A., Duché, D., Ruiz, C.M. et al. Toward a nanoimprinted nanoantenna to perform optical rectification through molecular diodes. J Nanopart Res 19, 394 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-017-4091-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-017-4091-4