Front-electrode design for efficient near-field thermophotovoltaics
Name
1108127.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
958.12 KB
Format
Unknown
Checksum (MD5)
fd77427f5c23b218ec7f0a5ae5a5d567
Author(s)
Karalis, Aristeidis
Joannopoulos, John
Date Issued
2019
Journal
Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering
Publisher
SPIE-Intl Soc Optical Eng
Version
Final published version
Abstract
© 2019 SPIE. In near-field TPV cells, the effects of the necessary front electrode are considered and shown to be of great importance. The electrode tradeoff between required high dc conductivity but low photonic absorption becomes detrimental for the efficiency in the very near field, as the thermal-emitter evanescent waves decay fast and are absorbed inside the electrode without penetrating sufficiently into the semiconductor. Therefore, near-field cells fail to deliver ultra-high power efficiently, as hoped. Still, efficient mid-power conversion is possible, and we compare the performance of several tunable-by-doping conducting-electrode materials. Moreover, novel phenomena arise in the near field, such as the inability to use thick transparent electrodes, while instead the feasibility of ultra-thin 'opaque' ones. The metallic-grid fingers exhibit an 'anomalous' shading loss, significantly smaller than predicted by geometry, by suppressing the thermal emission in the emitter regions across them.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research Laboratory of Electronics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
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Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2529736
