Photonic Design: From Fundamental Solar Cell Physics to Computational Inverse Design

Photonic innovation is becoming ever more important in the modern world. systems are dominating shorter and shorter communications distances,'s are rapidly emerging for a variety of applications, and solar cells show to be a mainstream technology in the energy space. The need for, energy-efficient photonic and optoelectronic devices will only increase. work unites fundamental physics and a novel computational inverse design towards such innovation. The first half of the dissertation is devoted to the physics of-efficiency solar cells. As solar cells approach fundamental efficiency, their internal physics transforms. Photonic considerations, instead of ones, are the key to reaching the highest voltages and efficiencies. photon management led to Alta Device's recent dramatic increase of the cell efficiency record to 28.3%. Moreover, approaching the-Queisser limit for any solar cell technology will require light to become a part of all future designs. The second half of the dissertation introduces inverse design as a new paradigm in photonics. An assortment of techniques (FDTD, FEM,.) have enabled quick and accurate simulation of the "forward problem" of fields for a given geometry. However, scientists and engineers are more interested in the inverse problem: for a desired functionality, geometry is needed? Answering this question breaks from the emphasis on forward problem and forges a new path in computational photonics. The of shape calculus enables one to quickly find superior, non-intuitive. Novel designs for optical cloaking and sub-wavelength solar cell are presented.