SUMMARY

The ability to control and optimize the interactions between and light and matter has much utility in engineering design across various fields and particularly in the fields of energy generation and storage. A potential way to optimize light interactions and realize optimal optical behavior for a given application is via a composite surface with surface features that yield optical properties that are different from the intrinsic optical properties of the base material. This work investigates the directional and spectral effects of an array of semitransparent external hemispheres sitting atop an opaque specular substrate on the apparent optical properties of the surface by analyzing a unit cell of the semitransparent external structure. Because the length scales investigated were much larger than the incident wavelength, analysis was done via a 3-D ray tracing algorithm dictated by geometric optics.