Title
Modelling the slow photon absorption enhancement in novel inverse opal photocatalysts
Description
Inverse opal (IO) photonic crystals are highly promising for photocatalysis because they enable to slow down light within the material, improving solar light absorption and thereby efficiency. However, absorption enhancement occurs only in narrow spectral ranges on both sides of the IO photonic band gap. Therefore, IO parameters must be tuned to maximize this effect, with respect to material’s electronic band edge. The goal of the project is to push forward the optimization of IOs thanks to numerical simulations of optical absorption in these 3D structures. Simulations will be realized by the Rigorous Coupled Wave Analysis (RCWA) method, implemented in an open-source code. The first objective is to develop a RCWA super-cell formulation to enable simulations of bilayer IOs, a new class of photocatalysts which exhibit multispectral slow photon effect. The second objective is to numerically compute the group velocity dispersion and use it as a merit function to guide optimization of IOs.
