Low Bandgap InAs-Based Thermophotovoltaic Cells for Heat-Electricity Conversion

Abstract

The practical realization of thermophotovoltaic (TPV) cells, which can directly convert heat into electric power, is of considerable technological interest. However, most existing TPV cells require heat sources at temperatures of $1800°C. Here we report a low bandgap mid-infrared cell based on InAs and demonstrate TPV operation with heat sources at temperatures in the range 500-950°C. The maximum open circuit voltage (V oc ) and short circuit current density (J sc ) were measured as 0.06 V and 0.89 A cm À2 for a blackbody temperature of 950°C and an incident power density of 720 mW cm À2 without antireflection coating or electrode optimisation. TPV operation was obtained with heat sources at temperatures as low as 500°C, which represents progress towards energy scavenging and waste heat recovery applications.

Wavelength-selective mid-infrared metamaterial absorbers with multiple tungsten cross resonators

“…The designed W-based metamaterial absorbers and emitters can advance promising applications in thermal energy harvesting such as thermal photovoltaic (TPV) cells at the mid-infrared wavelength range. Different from conventional solar cells, many types of heat sources are available for TPV cells such as high-temperature combustion processes (typically above 2000 K) and low-temperature waste heat sources (typically in 600 K ~1300 K) from industries of glass, steel and paper [57,58]. High-temperature TPV cells are still difficult to implement in practice mainly due to the requirement of high-temperature enduring materials and thermal management [57].…”

“…High-temperature TPV cells are still difficult to implement in practice mainly due to the requirement of high-temperature enduring materials and thermal management [57]. Low-temperature TPV cells are important for energy recovery from waste heat sources and have been experimentally explored with low-bandgap semiconductor of InAs (0.32 eV) [58]. Alternative selections of low-bandgap semiconductors (0.18 eV -0.35 eV), for instance, InSb (0.18 eV) [59], SnTe (0.18 eV) [60], PbTe (0.19 eV) [61], PbSe (0.26 eV ~0.29 eV) [62,63], InAsSb (0.29 eV) [64] and GaInAsSbP (0.35 eV) [65], have also been reported for designing practical low-temperature TPV cells.…”

Пространственное перераспределение излучения во флип-чип фотодиодах на основе двойных гетероструктур InAsSbP/InAs

“…(n 1 + n 2 ) 2 , n 1 = 1, n 2 = 3.52 4 . В рамках этого допу-щения суммарная интенсивность вышедшего из кристал-ла излучения, сформированного лишь с участием отра-жения от нижней грани чипа (см.…”

“…Эти процессы могут иметь существенное влияние на величину эффективной площади сбора фотонов, и потому они являлись предметом изучения во многих публикациях, посвященных полупроводниковым фото-приемникам. Однако применительно к фотодиодам (ФД) на основе структур с гетеропереходом InAsSbP/InAs, используемым в пирометрии [1,2], газовом анализе [3] и в качестве термоэлектрических преобразователей [4], указанные исследования были крайне ограниченными и не охватывали многих аспектов указанного вопроса. Так, например, оценка отражательных свойств омиче-ских контактов к слоям InAsSbP с дырочным типом проводимости (анодов) вблизи максимума спектральной фоточувствительности проводилась лишь однажды [5], а пространственная неоднородность фоточувствитель-ности, обусловленная вхождением фотонов в кристалл вдали от анода ограниченной площади, рассматривалась лишь для ФД, освещаемых со стороны слоя p-типа (ан-гл.…”

The Effect of Self-Diffusion on the Zn Diffusion in III-V Compound Semiconductors

“…The bandgap of InAs is about 0.35eV, the InAs TPV cells fabricated by the Zn diffusion method absorb the photons in the range of 1~3.5 m µ [5,[20][21][22][23]，thus they have import applications in low temperature TPV systems. Figure 8a shows the Zn profiles in n-InAs under Ga-rich conditions.…”