Mena Gadalla and Prof. Atif Shamim’s paper titled “Design, Optimization, and fabrication of a 28.3 THz Nano-Rectenna for Infrared detection and rectification” has been accepted for publication by one of world’s best publishing house “Nature Publishing Group”. In this paper, to appear in Nature Scientific Reports, the feasibility of harvesting energy from waste heat and solar energy remissions in the infrared regime is reported. This is achieved by treating the infrared emissions as electromagnetic waves that are collected and converted into electricity by a nano-rectenna device. This pioneering work opens doors to a new paradigm in energy harvesting from ambient renewable energy resources.
Abstract: The increasing energy demands of the world’s population and the quickly diminishing fossil fuel reserves together suggest the urgent need to secure long-lasting alternative and renewable energy resources. Here, we present a THz antenna integrated with a rectifier (rectenna) for harvesting and rectifying infrared energy. We demonstrate a bowtie antenna that is optimized to produce a highly enhanced local field at the bow tip end when excited resonantly. To benefit from this enhancement, the diode is realized at the gap between the overlapped antenna’s arms using a 0.7 nm copper oxide. The thin-film diode offers low zero-bias resistance of 500 Ω and thus improving matching to the antenna. In addition, the rectenna prototype demonstrates high zero bias responsivity (4 A/W), which is critical to producing DC current directly from THz signals without the application of an external electric source, particularly for energy harvesting applications."
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