Related papers: Spectral selectivity from resonant-coupling in mic…
A quantum-mechanical formulation of energy transfer between closely-spaced surfaces is given. Coupling between the two surfaces arises from the atomic dipole-dipole interaction involving transverse-photon exchange. The exchange of photons…
We theoretically show that a thermophotovoltaic (TPV) system enhanced by a wire metamaterial opens the door to a prospective microgap thermophotovoltaics which will combine high electric output with relatively low temperatures of the…
Recent experimental studies on near-field thermophotovoltaic (TPV) energy conversion have mainly focused on enhancing performance via photon tunneling of evanescent waves. In the sub-micron gap, however, there exist peculiar phenomena…
Metasurfaces based on gap surface-plasmon resonators allow one to arbitrarily control the phase, amplitude and polarization of reflected light with high efficiency. However, the performance of densely-packed metasurfaces is reduced, often…
A quantum-mechanical formulation of energy transfer between closely spaced surfaces is given. Coupling between the two surfaces arises from the atomic dipole-dipole interaction involving transverse-photon exchange. The exchange of photons…
In this work, we present an expression for the near-field thermal radiative transfer between two spheres with an arbitrary numbers of coatings. We numerically demonstrate that the spectrum of heat transfer between layered spheres exhibits…
When two objects made of a material which supports surface modes are brought in close proximity to each other such that the vacuum gap between them is less than the thermal wavelength of radiation, then the coupling between the surface…
A near-field thermophotovoltaic (TPV) system with a multilayer emitter of alternate tungsten and alumina layer is proposed in this paper. The fluctuational electrodynamics along with the dyadic Green function for a multilayered structure is…
A p-n junction maintained at above ambient temperature can work as a heat engine, converting some of the supplied heat into electricity and rejecting entropy by interband emission. Such thermoradiative cells have potential to harvest…
This paper provides a method based on rigorous coupled wave analysis for the calculation of the radiative thermal capacitance between a layer that is patterned with arbitrary, periodically repeating features and a planar one. This method is…
We evaluate near-field thermophotovoltaic (TPV) energy conversion systems focusing in particular on their open-circuit voltage (Voc). Unlike previous analyses based largely on numerical simulations with fluctuational electrodynamics, here,…
When the quality of multijunction solar cells becomes sufficiently high, radiative exchange of photons between cells has to be taken into account to properly model these devices. In this work it is shown how this radiative coupling can be…
We demonstrate the possibility of achieving enhanced frequency-selective near-field radiative heat transfer between patterned (photonic crystal) slabs at designable frequencies and separations, exploiting a general numerical approach for…
Among several solutions to exploit solar energy, thermophotovoltaics (TPV) have been popularized and have known great breakthroughs during the past two decades. Yet, existing systems still have low efficiencies since the wavelength range of…
This work investigates an alternative to thermophotovoltaics for harvesting thermal and optical energy via photon coupling and thermionic energy conversion. In this device, a heat source is radiatively coupled to a thermionic electron…
Near-field thermophotovoltaic systems can achieve ultra-high power densities, however, this often comes at the cost of reduced efficiency. We show that this power-efficiency trade-off can be mitigated through substrate engineering. We…
In order to ensure the fastest wireless energy transfer from a source to the user one needs to maximize the channel capacity for power transport. In communications technologies, the concept of MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) exploits…
A huge amount of thermal energy is available close to material surfaces in radiative and non-radiative states, which can be useful for matter characterization or for energy devices. One way to harness this near-field energy is to scatter it…
A thermophotovoltaic (TPV) energy converter harnesses thermal photons emitted by a hot body and converts them to electricity. When the radiative heat exchange between the emitter and PV cell is spectrally monochromatic, the TPV system can…
Radiative energy transfer between closely spaced bodies is known to be significantly larger than that predicted by classical radiative transfer because of tunneling due to evanescent waves. Theoretical analysis of near--field radiative…