Abstract
SolPOC, Solar Performance Optimization Code, is a Python package designed to solve Maxwell’s equations in multilayered thin film structures used in solar energy management systems. It is specifically tailored for research on coatings, thin film deposition, and materials for solar energy applications. Such applications include coatings for solar thermal, Concentrated Solar Thermal, Concentrated Solar Power, photovoltaics, low-emissivity (low-e) windows, buildings or eyeglasses. The package includes a stable and fast method to calculate the spectral reflectivity, transmissivity, and absorptivity of a stack of thin films over the full solar spectrum and to maximize their performance through optimization. SolPOC comes with several heuristic optimization methods and a comprehensive database of refractive indices of real materials. The code is designed to be simple for non-coder users thanks to template scripts, extensive documentation, and a tutorial notebook. The project is freely available on GitHub.