Laser nanostructured Co nanocylinders-Al2O3 cermets for enhanced & flexible solar selective absorbers applications

We report on the structural and optical properties of laser surface structured Co nanocylinders-Al2O3 cermets on flexible Aluminium substrate for enhanced solar selective absorbers applications. This new family of solar selective absorbers coating consisting of Co nanocylinders embedded into nanoporous alumina template which were produced by standard electrodeposition and thereafter submitted to femtosecond laser surface structuring. While their structural and chemical properties were investigated by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectrometry and atomic force microscopy, their optical characteristics were investigated by specular & diffuse reflectance. The optimized samples exhibit an elevated optical absorptance alpha(lambda) above 98% and an emittance epsilon(lambda) similar to 0.03 in the spectral range of 200-1100 nm. This set of values was suggested to be related to several surface and volume phenomena such as light trapping, plasmon surface effect as well as angular dependence of light reflection induced by the ultrafast laser multi-scale structuring. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.