Wavelength-selective thermal meta-emitters for thermophotovoltaic power generation

Kwong-Kit Choi; Patrick Oduor; Achyut Dutta

doi:10.1117/12.2666272

15 June 2023 Wavelength-selective thermal meta-emitters for thermophotovoltaic power generation

Kwong-Kit Choi, Patrick Oduor, Achyut Dutta

Proceedings Volume 12513, Energy Harvesting and Storage: Materials, Devices, and Applications XIII; 1251302 (2023) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2666272
Event: SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing, 2023, Orlando, Florida, United States

Abstract

In this work, we designed a wavelength-selective thermal meta-emitter consisting of a periodic array of rings. These rings generate localized surface plasmons to provide large emissivity, narrow band, and highly directional thermal radiation. The large emissivity enables large power throughput. The narrow spectrum matches the GaSb PV cell absorption spectrum and thus reduces the power wasted in the cell and increase the power conversion efficiency (PCE). The collimated emission enables large distance between emitter and cell distance to reduce convectional heating of PV cells. The emitter consists of a thin dielectric layer with an etched ring surface, and this surface is covered with a metal. Thermal emission emerges from the planar side of the dielectric surface when the metal cover is heated by a thermal source. We model different dielectric and metal materials to determine the optimum choice of materials for the meta-emitter. The considered materials are SiC and AlN for dielectric and gold, tungsten, rhodium, tantalum, molybdenum, niobium, chromium, and platinum for metal. We found that while AlN provides a larger power selectivity, SiC yields a better overall PCE because of the better matched emission spectrum with the GaSb PV cell. For the metal cover, we found that tantalum has the second largest power selectivity after gold. Since gold has a low melting point unsuitable for high temperature TPV operation, tantalum becomes the most suitable material for the meta-emitter.

Citation Download Citation

Kwong-Kit Choi, Patrick Oduor, and Achyut Dutta "Wavelength-selective thermal meta-emitters for thermophotovoltaic power generation", Proc. SPIE 12513, Energy Harvesting and Storage: Materials, Devices, and Applications XIII, 1251302 (15 June 2023); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2666272

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KEYWORDS

Solar cells

Silicon carbide

Metals

Refractive index

Gold

Tantalum

Dielectrics

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