From solar cells to ocean buoys: Wide-bandwidth limits to absorption by metaparticle arrays

In this paper, we develop an approximate wide-bandwidth upper bound to the absorption enhancement in arrays of metaparticles, applicable to general wave-scattering problems and motivated here by ocean-buoy energy extraction. We show that general limits, including the well-known Yablonovitch result in solar cells, arise from reciprocity conditions. The use of reciprocity in the stochastic regime leads us to a corrected diffusion model from which we derive our main result: an analytical prediction of optimal array absorption that closely matches exact simulations for both random and optimized arrays under angle/frequency averaging. This result also enables us to propose and quantify approaches to increase performance through careful particle design and/or using external reflectors. We show in particular that the use of membranes on the water’s surface allows substantial enhancement.