From Solar Cells to Ocean Buoys: Wide-Bandwidth Limits to Absorption by Metaparticle Arrays

Abstract

In this paper, we develop an approximate wide-bandwidth upper bound to the absorption enhancement in arrays of metaparticles, applicable to general wave-scattering problems and motivated here by ocean-buoy energy extraction. We show that general limits, including the well-known Yablonovitch result in solar cells, arise from reciprocity conditions. The use of reciprocity in the stochastic regime leads us to a corrected diffusion model from which we derive our main result: an analytical prediction of optimal array absorption that closely matches exact simulations for both random and optimized arrays under angle and frequency averaging. This result also enables us to propose and quantify approaches to increase performance through careful particle design and/or using external reflectors. We show, in particular, that the use of membranes on the water's surface allows substantial enhancement. ©2019 American Physical Society.