Minimum radiative heat transfer between two metallic half-spaces due to propagating waves

Narayanaswamy, Arvind; Mayo, Jeff

doi:10.1016/j.jqsrt.2016.07.018

Cited by 8 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…For the electrical power, at the largest vacuum gap thicknesses, a local maximum and a local minimum are visible. These specific variations are resulting from the interference effects taking place in the coherent regime of thermal radiation between parallel media [87,88]. Below the vacuum gap thickness where there is a local minimum, electrical power increases because of the contribution of evanescent waves, as expected.…”

Section: Impact Of Sub-bandgap Absorption and Series Resistance Lossesmentioning

confidence: 62%

Micron-sized liquid nitrogen-cooled indium antimonide photovoltaic cell for near-field thermophotovoltaics

Vaillon¹,

Pérez²,

Lucchesi³

et al. 2019

Opt. Express

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Simulations of near-field thermophotovoltaic devices predict promising performance, but experimental observations remain challenging. Having the lowest bandgap among III-V semiconductors, indium antimonide (InSb) is an attractive choice for the photovoltaic cell, provided it is cooled to a low temperature, typically around 77 K. Here, by taking into account fabrication and operating constraints, radiation transfer and low-injection charge transport simulations are made to find the optimum architecture for the photovoltaic cell. Appropriate optical and electrical properties of indium antimonide are used. In particular, impact of the Moss-Burstein effects on the interband absorption coefficient of n-type degenerate layers, and of parasitic sub-bandgap absorption by the free carriers and phonons are accounted for. Micron-sized cells are required to minimize the huge issue of the lateral series resistance losses. The proposed methodology is presumably relevant for making realistic designs of near-field thermophotovoltaic devices based on low-bandgap III-V semiconductors.

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Section: Impact Of Sub-bandgap Absorption and Series Resistance Lossesmentioning

confidence: 62%

Micron-sized liquid nitrogen-cooled indium antimonide photovoltaic cell for near-field thermophotovoltaics

Vaillon¹,

Pérez²,

Lucchesi³

et al. 2019

Opt. Express

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“…3(a)), external luminescence of propagating modes in vacuum (0 < k ρ < k 0 ) varies with gap thickness. This is due to coherence effects arising from multiple reflections in the vacuum gap [55,56]. External luminescence is up to 25% smaller or larger than the case of an isolated cell.…”

Section: Near-field External Luminescencementioning

confidence: 96%

External Luminescence and Photon Recycling in Near-Field Thermophotovoltaics

2017

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The importance of considering near-field effects on photon recycling and spontaneous emission in a thermophotovoltaic device is investigated. Fluctuational electrodynamics is used to calculate external luminescence from a photovoltaic cell as a function of emitter type, vacuum gap thickness between emitter and cell, and cell thickness. The observed changes in external luminescence suggest strong modifications of photon recycling caused by the presence of the emitter. Photon recycling for propagating modes is affected by reflection at the vacuum-emitter interface and is substantially decreased by the leakage towards the emitter through tunneling of frustrated modes. In addition, spontaneous emission by the cell can be strongly enhanced by the presence of an emitter supporting surface polariton modes. It follows that using a radiative recombination model with a spatially uniform radiative lifetime, even corrected by a photon recycling factor, is inappropriate. Applying the principles of detailed balance, and accounting for non-radiative recombination mechanisms, the impact of external luminescence enhancement in the near field on thermophotovoltaic performance is investigated. It is shown that unlike isolated † Corresponding author. Tel.: + 1 801 581 5721 Email address: mfrancoeur@mech.utah.edu 2 cells, the external luminescence efficiency is not solely dependent on cell quality, but significantly increases as the vacuum gap thickness decreases below 400 nm for the case of an intrinsic silicon emitter. In turn, the open-circuit voltage and power density benefit from this enhanced external luminescence toward the emitter. This benefit is larger as cell quality, characterized by the contribution of non-radiative recombination, decreases.3

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“…Due to such a spectral difference, the performance of the NF-TPV device does not necessarily increase at a smaller vacuum gap. When the vacuum gap becomes comparable to the characteristic wavelength of thermal radiation or narrower, one can observe distinctive thermal radiation originating not only from the evanescent mode (i.e., near-field effect) but also from the propagating mode (i.e., interference effect). , The interference effect begins to appear when the evanescent mode is spectrally suppressed by the PV cell, causing performance fluctuations of the TPV device, as opposed to an overwhelming near-field effect shading the interference effect in the general full spectrum regime. Such phenomena have already been addressed in several theoretical works employing PV cells made of GaSb, − InAs, InSb, and InGaSb ternary alloy semiconductors − since the report by Whale .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thermophotovoltaic Energy Conversion in Far-to-Near-Field Transition Regime

et al. 2022

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Recent experimental studies on near-field thermophotovoltaic energy conversion have mainly focused on improving performance via photon tunneling of evanescent waves. In the sub-micron gap, however, there exist peculiar phenomena induced by the interference of propagating waves, which are seldom observed in the full spectrum radiation due to the massive increase in evanescent modes. Here, we experimentally demonstrate the oscillatory nature of near-field thermophotovoltaic energy conversion in the far-to-near-field transition regime (250−2600 nm), where evanescent and propagating modes are comparable due to the selective spectral response by the photovoltaic cell. Noticeably, we show that the same amount of photocurrent can be generated at different vacuum gaps of 870 and 322 nm, which is 10% larger than the far-field value.

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Minimum radiative heat transfer between two metallic half-spaces due to propagating waves

Cited by 8 publications

References 17 publications

Micron-sized liquid nitrogen-cooled indium antimonide photovoltaic cell for near-field thermophotovoltaics

Micron-sized liquid nitrogen-cooled indium antimonide photovoltaic cell for near-field thermophotovoltaics

External Luminescence and Photon Recycling in Near-Field Thermophotovoltaics

Thermophotovoltaic Energy Conversion in Far-to-Near-Field Transition Regime

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