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Antiguide laser arrays have been fabricated and operated up to peak pulsed powers of 7.7 W in a beam with a full-width at half-maximum in the main lobe of 0.7 deg. Up to 0.7 W of continuous wave power is emitted into a radiation pattern 2.5 times the diffraction limit. By varying the temperature of the array to vary the operating wavelength of the device, the threshold gain condition of the array modes is altered, allowing thermal tuning of the far field of the device.
Loss mechanisms in high-efficiency solar cells were discussed. Fundamental limitations and practical solutions were stressed. Present cell efficiency is limited by many recombination sites: emitter, base, contacts, and oxide/silicon interface. Use of polysilicon passivation was suggested. After reduction of these losses, a 25% efficient cell could be built. A floating emitter cell design was shown that had the potential of low recombination losses.
Gratings with high efficiency in a single diffracted order can be realized with both volume holographic and diffractive optical elements. However, each method has limitations that restrict the applications in which they can be used. For example, high efficiency volume holographic gratings require an appropriate combination of thickness and permittivity modulation throughout the bulk of the material. Possible combinations of those two characteristics are limited by properties of currently available materials, thus restricting the range of applications for volume holographic gratings. Efficiency of a diffractive optic grating is dependent on its approximation of an ideal analog profile using discrete features. The size of constituent features and, consequently, the number that can be used within a required grating period restricts the applications in which diffractive optic gratings can be used. These limitations imply that there are applications which cannot be addressed by either technology. In this paper we propose to address a number of applications in this category with a new method of creating high efficiency gratings which we call stratified diffractive optic gratings. In this approach diffractive optic techniques are used to create an optical structure that emulates volume grating behavior. To illustrate the stratified diffractive optic grating concept we consider a specific application, a scanner for a space-based coherent wind lidar, with requirements that would be difficult to meet by either volume holographic or diffractive optic methods. The lidar instrument design specifies a transmissive scanner element with the input beam normally incident and the exiting beam deflected at a fixed angle from the optical axis. The element will be rotated about the optical axis to produce a conical scan pattern. The wavelength of the incident beam is 2.06 microns and the required deflection angle is 30 degrees, implying a grating period of approximately 4 microns. Creating a high efficiency volume grating with these parameters would require a grating thickness that cannot be attained with current photosensitive materials. For a diffractive optic grating, the number of binary steps necessary to produce high efficiency combined with the grating period requires feature sizes and alignment tolerances that are also unattainable with current techniques. Rotation of the grating and integration into a space-based lidar system impose the additional requirements that it be insensitive to polarization orientation, that its mass be minimized and that it be able to withstand launch and space environments.
This work describes the development of a high-power amplifier for use with a remote sensing SAR system. The amplifier is intended to meet the requirements for the Sweep-SAR technique for use in the proposed DESDynI SAR instrument. In order to optimize the amplifier design, active load-pull technique is employed to provide harmonic tuning to provide efficiency improvements. In addition, some of the techniques to overcome the challenges of load-pulling high power devices are presented. The design amplifier was measured to have 49 dBm of output power with 75% PAE, which is suitable to meet the proposed system requirements.
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A four-port magic-T hybrid waveguide junction serves as the central component of a high-efficiency two-way power combiner circuit for transmitting a high-rate phase-modulated digital signal at a carrier frequency in the Ka-band (between 27 and 40 GHz). This power combiner was developed to satisfy a specific requirement to efficiently combine the coherent outputs of two traveling-wavetube (TWT) amplifiers that are typically characterized by power levels on the order of 100 W or more. In this application, the use of a waveguide-based power combiner (instead of a coaxial-cable- or microstrip-based power combiner, for example) is dictated by requirements for low loss, high power-handling capability, and broadband response. Combiner efficiencies were typically 90 percent or more over both the linear and saturated output power regions of operation of the TWTs . Figure 1 depicts the basic configuration of the magic-T hybrid junction. The coherent outputs of the two TWTs enter through ports 1 and 4. As a result of the orientations of the electromagnetic fields, which also provides a needed high port-to-port isolation, of these two input signals and the interior design of the magic-T junction, the input powers are divided so as to add in phase at one output port (port 2), and to be opposite in phase and hence cancel each other at the opposite coplanar output port (port 3). The net result is that the output power at port 2 is essentially double that of the output of one TWT, minus the power lost in the magic-T hybrid junction. Optimum performance as a high-efficiency power combiner thus requires a balance of both power and phase at the input ports of the magic-T. Replicas of this two-way combiner can be arranged in a binary configuration to obtain a 2n-way (where n is an integer) combiner. For example, Figure 2 illustrates the use of three two-way combiners to combine the outputs of four TWTs.
The High Efficiency Solar Cell Task was assigned the objective of understanding and developing high efficiency solar cell devices that would meet the cost and performance goals of the Flat Plate Solar Array (FSA) Project. The need for research dealing with high efficiency devices was considered important because of the role efficiency plays in reducing price per watt of generated energy. The R&D efforts conducted during the 1982 to 1986 period are summarized to provide understanding and control of energy conversion losses associated with crystalline silicon solar cells. New levels of conversion efficiency were demonstrated. Major contributions were made both to the understanding and reduction of bulk and surface losses in solar cells. For example, oxides, nitrides, and polysilicon were all shown to be potentially useful surface passivants. Improvements in measurement techniques were made and Auger coefficients and spectral absorption data were obtained for unique types of silicon sheets. New modelling software was developed including a program to optimize a device design based on input characteristics of a cell.
High efficiency power inverter development and evaluation
High efficiency oscillator using avalanche square wave diode, considering case of silicon p-i-n diode
High efficiency transformerless amplitude modulator coupled to RF power amplifier
High-efficiency dc/dc converter has been developed that provides commonly used voltages of plus or minus 12 Volts from an unregulated dc source of from 14 to 40 Volts. Unique features of converter are its high efficiency at low power level and ability to provide output either larger or smaller than input voltage.
Emission-line galaxies (ELGs) are an important tracer of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs) and large-scale structure at z > 1. In this work, we investigate the feasibility of using deep wide-area multiband imaging (e.g., from the Rubin Observatory) to efficiently select high-redshift ELGs. Using Hyper Suprime-Cam grizy photometry and COSMOS2020 many-band photometric redshifts, we design simple color cuts guided by a probabilistic random forest classifier to select galaxies at z = 1.1–1.6. We then empirically test and refine these color cuts using two samples of galaxies with deep spectroscopy and broad color coverage obtained with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). Compared to DESI ELGs at z = 1.1–1.6, we achieve a higher redshift-measurement success rate (89% versus 69%), a much higher correct redshift-range success rate (84% versus 34%), and a far higher net surface density yield (1372 deg −2 versus 660 deg −2 ). Combining our sample with current DESI ELGs would increase the net ELG number density by a factor of ∼2.5, moving it out of the shot-noise limited regime and reducing the uncertainties on the BAO scale parameter at z = 1.1–1.6 by a factor of ∼2 at the highest redshifts. We also test selections using shallower photometry and obtain qualitatively similar results.
A square-wave oscillator circuit containing only simple resistor-capacitor combinations and transistors operates with high efficiency at relatively high power levels.
An outline is presented giving module high efficiency research activities and module technologies contributing to high efficiency. Some factors given on high efficiency are high cell packing factors, low optical losses, low electrical mismatch losses and low operating temperatures. Factors given which are associated with reliability of modules are high efficiency cells, narrow module borders, antisoiling coatings, and antireflection coatings on glass-air interfaces.
A high efficiency, high power density, low distortion 250kW motor controller is being developed at NASA Glenn Research Center. Future electric aircraft require motor controllers which achieve the needed key performance parameters required to show benefit in increasing overall aircraft efficiency. Through a combination of carefully considered electrical topological choices and through the use of recent advancements in power switches and magnetic materials, a converter is designed which meets these requirements. A multilevel and interleaved converter architecture is chosen to meet the voltage, current, and THD requirements. The enclosure and thermal designs meet their weight targets and enable high altitude operation.
High efficiency Al sub x Ga sub 1-x As/GaAs heteroface solar concentrator cells have been developed for space applications. The cells, which were grown using metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), have been fabricated in both the p-n and n-p configurations. Magnesium and zinc are used as the p-type dopants, and Se is used as the n-type dopant. The space cells, which are designed for use in a Cassegrainian concentrator operating at 100 suns, AMO, have a circular illuminated area 4 mm in diameter on a 5 mm by 5 mm cell. These cells have exhibited flash-tested efficiencies as high as 23.6 percent at 28 C and 21.6 percent at 80 C.
The high-efficiency crystalline silicon solar cells research forum addressed high-efficiency concepts, surface-interface effects, bulk effects, modeling and device processing. The topics were arranged into six interactive sessions, which focused on the state-of-the-art of device structures, identification of barriers to achieve high-efficiency cells and potential ways to overcome these barriers.