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Researchers at the University of Sydney, Swinburne University of Technology and the Australian National University have collaborated to develop a solar absorbing, ultrathin film with unique properties that has great potential for use in solar thermal energy harvesting.

The 90-nanometre material is 1000 times finer than a human hair and can be rapidly heated up to 160 degrees under natural sunlight in an open environment.

This new graphene-based material also opens new avenues in:

• thermophotovoltaics (the direct conversion of heat to electricity)
• solar seawater desalination
• infrared light source and heater
• optical components: modulators and interconnects for communication devices
• photodetectors

It could even lead to the development of 鈥榠nvisible cloaking technology鈥� through developing large-scale thin films enclosing the objects to be 鈥榟idden鈥�.

Professor Martijn De Sterke from the聽听补苍诲听聽is Director of the Institute for Photonics and Optical Science. He said: 鈥淭hrough our collaboration we came up with a very innovative and successful result.

鈥淲e have developed a new class of optical material, the properties of which can be tuned for multiple uses.鈥�

The researchers have developed a 2.5cm x 5cm working prototype to demonstrate the photo-thermal performance of the graphene-based metamaterial absorber.

They have also proposed a scalable manufacture strategy to fabricate the proposed graphene-based absorber at low cost.

鈥淭his is among many graphene innovations in our group,鈥� said聽聽Research Leader, Nanophotonic Solar Technology, in Swinburne鈥檚聽.

鈥淚n this work, the reduced graphene oxide layer and grating structures were coated with a solution and fabricated by a laser nanofabrication method, which are both scalable and low cost.鈥�

鈥淥ur cost-effective and scalable graphene absorber is promising for integrated, large-scale applications, such as energy-harvesting, thermal emitters, optical interconnects, photodetectors and optical modulators,鈥� said first author of the research paper,聽, Senior Research Fellow at Swinburne鈥檚 Centre for Micro-Photonics.

鈥淔abrication on a flexible substrate and the robustness stemming from graphene make it suitable for industrial use,鈥� Dr Keng-Te Lin, another author from Swinburne, said.

鈥淭he physical effect causing this outstanding absorption in such a thin layer is quite general and thereby opens up a lot of exciting applications,鈥� said聽, who completed his PhD in physics at the University of Sydney in 2016 and is now a lecturer at the Australian National University.

The research was published today in聽聽and has been funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant.