Toward optical selectivity aerogels by plasmonic nanoparticles doping

Abstract

Doping plasmonic nanoparticles in aerogel to achieve optical selectivity can significantly extend its applicable prospect. An optical selectivity aerogel by doping with gold/silver nanoparticles is introduced in this work. The radiative properties of optical selectivity aerogels were predicted by the combination of T-matrix and Monte Carlo method. The effects of morphology, aspect ratio, size, and doping concentration of nanoparticles on the spectral selectivity of the hybrid aerogels were discussed. The results show that the aspect ratio of the plasmonic particle affects the multispectral conversion of solar radiation significantly. The aerogel containing silver nanocylinders of AR = 0.2 and ITO nanospheres achieves the highest solar energy absorption. Even with an extremely low doping concentration (fv,ITO = 0.01% and fv,p = 0.001%), the absorption to solar radiation can be increased by over 75% for a 1 cm thick aerogel, which can be employed for efficient solar desalination. In addition, by doping with silver nanocylinders (AR = 0.15), the hybrid aerogel is penetrable to the visible light but absorbs infrared solar radiation for the application of anti-fogging/deicing. The silver nanospheroids (AR = 0.3)-based hybrid aerogel can serve as a greenhouse envelope for augmented photosynthesis to absorb the green light while allowing most of the other wavelengths of solar radiation to pass through.