Model of reflectance of thermophotovoltaic cell and cold plate

Abstract

The reflectivity of a gold-plated cold plate, and mounted multi-junction photovoltaic cells, is studied in the context of a thermal energy grid storage system. The emitter is modeled as a black body emitter. Improving the efficiency of the system requires high reflectance below the bandgap energy of the cells, and high absorption above the bandgap. The matrix transfer method is used to predict the total reflectance of the cell, and to study the effect of changing the thickness of the most significant layer. Decreasing the thickness of this layer can lead to a higher reflectance below the bandgap, but more data is needed to fully integrate the effect of doping concentration (using the Drude model) into these reflectance calculations.