Tailoring photonic metamaterial resonances for thermal radiation
Author(s)
Bermel, Peter A.; Ghebrebrhan, Michael; Harradon, Michael R.; Yeng, YiXiang; Soljacic, Marin; Celanovic, Ivan L.; Joannopoulos, John; ... Show more Show less
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Selective solar absorbers generally have limited effectiveness in unconcentrated sunlight, because of reradiation losses over a broad range of wavelengths and angles. However, metamaterials offer the potential to limit radiation exchange to a proscribed range of angles and wavelengths, which has the potential to dramatically boost performance. After globally optimizing one particular class of such designs, we find thermal transfer efficiencies of 78% at temperatures over 1,000°C, with overall system energy conversion efficiencies of 37%, exceeding the Shockley-Quiesser efficiency limit of 31% for photovoltaic conversion under unconcentrated sunlight. This represents a 250% increase in efficiency and 94% decrease in selective emitter area compared to a standard, angular-insensitive selective absorber.
Date issued
2011-10Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research Laboratory of ElectronicsJournal
Nanoscale Research Letters
Publisher
Springer
Citation
Bermel, Peter et al. “Tailoring photonic metamaterial resonances for thermal radiation.” Nanoscale Research Letters. 2011 Oct 06;6(1):549.
Version: Author's final manuscript
ISSN
1931-7573
1556-276X