Thermal energy storage (TES) is extremely important in concentrated solar power (CSP) plants since it represents the main difference and advantage of CSP plants with respect to other renewable energy sources such as wind, photovoltaic, etc. CSP represents a low-carbon emission renewable source of energy, and TES allows CSP plants to have energy availability and dispatchability using available industrial technologies. Molten salts are used in CSP plants as a TES material because of their high operational temperature and stability of up to 500°C. Their main drawbacks are their relative poor thermal properties and energy storage density. A simple cost-effective way to improve thermal properties of fluids is to dope them with nanoparticles, thus obtaining the so-called salt-based nanofluids. In this work, solar salt used in CSP plants (60% NaNO₃ + 40% KNO₃) was doped with silica nanoparticles at different solid mass concentrations (from 0.5% to 2%). Specific heat was measured by means of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). A maximum increase of 25.03% was found at an optimal concentration of 1 wt.% of nanoparticles. The size distribution of nanoparticle clusters present in the salt at each concentration was evaluated by means of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and image processing, as well as by means of dynamic light scattering (DLS). The cluster size and the specific surface available depended on the solid content, and a relationship between the specific heat increment and the available particle surface area was obtained. It was proved that the mechanism involved in the specific heat increment is based on a surface phenomenon. Stability of samples was tested for several thermal cycles and thermogravimetric analysis at high temperature was carried out, the samples being stable. PACS 65.: Thermal properties of condensed matter; 65.20.-w: Thermal properties of liquids; 65.20.Jk: Studies of thermodynamic properties of specific liquids

Three-dimensional (3-D) imaging techniques have the potential to establish a future mass-market in the fields of entertainment and communications. Integral imaging (InI), which can capture and display true 3-D color images, has been seen as the right technology for 3-D viewing for audiences of more than one person. Due to the advanced degree of its development, InI technology could be ready for massive commercialization in the coming years. This development is the result of a strong research effort performed over the past few years. In this sense, this paper is devoted to reviewing some recent advances in InI, which have allowed improvement in the response of InI systems to the problems of the limited depth of field, poor axial and lateral resolution, pseudoscopic-to-orthoscopic conversion, production of 3-D images with continuous relief, or the limited range of viewing angles of InI monitors.

One of the main challenges in three-dimensional integral imaging is its limited depth of field. Such a limitation is imposed by diffraction, among other factors. The easiest way to improve the depth of field is by reducing the numerical aperture of the microlenses. However, such an improvement is obtained at the expense of an important deterioration in the spatial resolution. We propose a technique, which is novel in the context of integral imaging, for improving the depth of field with no deterioration of the spatial resolution. The technique, based on amplitude modulation of the array of phase elements, can substantially improve the figure of merit of the product of depth of the focus and the squared resolution.

Optics InfoBase is the Optical Society's online library for flagship journals, partnered and copublished journals, and recent proceedings from OSA conferences.

Optics InfoBase is the Optical Society's online library for flagship journals, partnered and copublished journals, and recent proceedings from OSA conferences.