Our analytic gradient-driven nanomaterial design paper is out in Phys. Rev. Res!

Multilayer nanostructures represent an important class of materials with tunable optical and thermal radiative properties that can be leveraged for a wide range of energy applications. We present a theoretical framework for optimizing the geometry of such structures that utilizes gradients of various objective functions that are enabled through analytic differentiation of the transfer-matrix equations. We demonstrate the usefulness of this method by applying it to the local optimization of many-degree-of-freedom structures for incandescent light sources, and the global optimization of few-degree-of-freedom structures that serve as solar cell coatings and optical cavities for enhancing the absorption of organic chromophores embedded in thin films.