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Feature Issue of Optics Express

Optics for the Environment: Solar Energy and Solid-State Lighting

Submission Opens:5 August 2024

Submission Deadline: 4 November 2024

Optics Express welcomes submissions to a feature issue on “Optics for the Environment: Solar Energy and Solid-State Lighting” in conjunction with the Solar Energy and Light-Emitting Devices topical meeting collocated with the 2024 Optica Advanced Photonics Congress. Whereas meeting participants are particularly encouraged to submit their work, the feature issue is open to all contributions in related areas.

This feature issue will focus on the latest developments in optics, photonics and advanced materials for the next generation of solar energy devices including photovoltaic (PV) solar cells and solar (thermal) collectors, radiative cooling, and light-emitting devices (LEDs).

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Solar Energy Categories:
    • Radiative cooling
    • Optics for multi-junction solar cells
    • Advances in wafer-based silicon solar cells and modules
    • Integrated photovoltaics for applications in buildings, infrastructure, vehicles and agriculture
    • Concentrating optics and solar concentrators
    • Optics for concentrating solar power and solar thermal applications
    • Concentrating photovoltaics
    • Thermophotovoltaics
    • Field performance and reliability of concentrator optics, degradation and soiling effects
    • Energy-yield analysis of conventional and emerging PV technologies
    • Bifacial solar modules
    • Space-based solar power
    • Energy-yield modelling of photovoltaic systems
    • Optics for photochemical and photoelectrochemical applications
    • Materials and photonic structures for perovskite solar cells
    • Semitransparent solar cells
    • Solar cells for monochromatic light
    • Economics of solar power
  • LED Categories:
    • Spectral tailoring for human-centric lighting and circadian lighting applications
    • Visual perception and color science of solid-state lighting
    • Laser-based solid-state lighting
    • Optical outcoupling strategies for solid-state lighting devices
    • Novel luminaire concepts for solid-state lighting devices
    • LEDs with emission outside the visible spectrum (e.g. UV, NIR, MIR)
    • Solid-state lighting with embedded communication capabilities (LiFi)
    • Solid-state lighting devices with actively controllable emission spectrum and/or directionality
    • Emerging applications of solid-state lighting (e.g. healthcare, water purification, surface disinfection, etc.)
    • Thermophotonic LEDs (i.e. electroluminescent cooling)
    • Advances in LED and OLED manufacturing for lighting applications
  • Cross-Cutting Categories:
    • Optical nanostructures for photovoltaic and light emitting devices, such as thin films, nanowires, and quantum dots
    • Design, and fabrication of light-management and light-outcoupling structures
    • Up and down conversion of photons
    • Optoelectronic materials and devices based on group IV, III-V, and II-VI semiconductors
    • Optoelectronic devices based on organic semiconductors and perovskites
    • Optoelectronic devices with quantum dots
    • Advanced characterization and measurement techniques
    • Reliability assessment and study of failure mechanisms
    • Lifecycle and economic analyses of solar energy and lighting products and systems
    • Optics for thermal management such as radiative cooling
    • Theoretical modelling of light emitting and photovoltaic materials and devices
    • LEDs and solar cells on flexible substrates
    • Novel strategies for daylighting

All submissions need to present original, previously unpublished work and will be subject to the normal standards and peer review processes of the journal. The standard Optics Express Article Processing Charges will apply to all published articles. To be eligible for publication, an expanded conference paper needs to add value to the original conference proceedings and the conference paper number must be included in the cover letter at submission. Please see Optica Publishing Group's guidelines on expanded conference papers for details.

Please prepare manuscripts according to the author instructions for submission to Optics Express and submit through our Prism submission system, specifying from the drop-down menu that the manuscript is for the feature issue on Optics for the Environment: Solar Energy and Solid-State Lighting.

Feature Editors

Noel Giebink, University of Michigan, USA (Lead Editor)
Thomas Cooper, York University, Canada
Lan Fu, Australian National University, Australia
Klaus Jaeger, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, Germany
Baodan Zhao, Zhejiang University, China