APPLICATIONS OF TECHNOLOGY:
- Energy harvesting and storage
- Thermal management applications including thermophotovoltaics, passive radiative cooling, concentrating solar power, military and aerospace systems, and water desalination.
BENEFITS:
- This invention introduces material properties with thermal stability for broadband emitters, including remarkably high spectral emissivity over a wide wavelength range and elevated temperatures.
- Uses femtosecond laser manufacturing technology which can achieve one-step, cost-effective, scalable, and facile fabrication.
BACKGROUND:
- Broadband emitters play an important role in many energy harvesting, storage, and thermal management applications. Current strategies for such emitters involve the use of carbon-based materials or applying surface coatings to underlying substrates. However, these techniques have limitations, such as achieving only intermediate emissivity (less than 0.9) or experiencing rapid thermal degradation at high temperatures.
TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW:
Berkeley Lab researchers have developed laser-induced broadband emitters (LIBEs) that exhibit a remarkable spectral emissivity higher than 0.96 across a wide wavelength range from 0.3 μm to 15 μm. This achievement was reached via localized material removal induced by ultrafast femtosecond laser irradiation, which results in the hierarchical formation of microstructures decorated with micro-/nano- particles. This results in surface geometries with exceptional spectral absorptivity, nearing a value of 1 across various substrates including metals, metal alloys, and carbon materials. Furthermore, this research has shown unseen performance with LIBEs’ thermal durability, maintaining an average absorptivity of 0.92 after being exposed to temperatures above 1000 °C for over 100 hours.
DEVELOPMENT STAGE:
Validation in laboratory
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS:
Minok Park
Vassilia Zorba
IP Status: Patent pending
OPPORTUNITIES:
Available for licensing or collaborative research