Related papers: Near-Field Enhanced Thermionic Energy Conversion f…
We investigate the performance of a micro gap vacuum thermionic energy converter considering the loss mechanisms due to the space charge effect and interelectrode radiative heat transfer. The dependencies of the space charge effect and…
In the close vicinity of a hot solid, at distances smaller than the thermal wavelength, a strong electromagnetic energy density exists because of the presence of evanescent field. Here we explore the possibility to harvest this energy using…
Near-field thermal radiation transfer overcoming the far-field blackbody limit has attracted significant attention in recent years owing to its potential for drastically increasing the output power and conversion efficiency of…
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…
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…
Cooperative energy recycling (CER) offers a new way to boost energy utilization in wireless-powered multi-access edge computing (MEC) networks, yet its integration with computation-communication co-design remains underexplored. This paper…
Recently, near-field radiative heat transfer enhancement across nanometer vacuum gaps has been intensively studied between two hyperbolic metamaterials (HMMs) due to unlimited wavevectors and high photonic density of state. In this work, we…
We introduce new micron-gap thermophotovoltaic systems enhanced by tungsten nanowires. We theoretically show that these systems allow the frequency-selective super-Planckian spectrum of radiative heat transfer that promises a very efficient…
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…
This paper presents a new device able to turn thermal gradients into electricity by using a bimetal-based heat engine coupled to an electrostatic converter. A two-steps conversion is performed: (i) a curved bimetallic strip turns the…
Thermoelectric energy harvesters can have a much higher conversion efficiency by implementing quantum dots/wells between the high temperature region and the low temperature region. However they still suffer a limitation of the maximum…
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…
Thermophotonics (TPX) is a technology close to thermophotovoltaics (TPV), where a heated light-emitting diode (LED) is used as the active thermal emitter of the system. It allows to tune the heat flux, by means of electroluminescence, to a…
Frequency up-conversion of few low-energy photons into a single high-energy photon, greatly contributes to imaging, light sources, detection and other fields of research. However, it offers negligible efficiency when up-converting many…
The rapidly growing demand for compact, high-energy power sources has outpaced the capabilities of conventional electrochemical systems that rely on outer-shell redox reactions. In this work, we present a new energy platform that utilizes…
While solar power systems have offered a wide variety of electricity generation approaches including photovoltaics, solar thermal power systems, and solar thermoelectric generators, the ability of generating electricity at both the daytime…
Advances in solid-state device design now allow the spectrum of transmitted electrons in thermionic and thermoelectric devices to be engineered in ways that were not previously possible. Here we show that the shape of the electron energy…
Heat dissipation is one of the most serious problems in modern integrated electronics with the continuously decreasing devices size. Large portion of the consumed power is inevitably dissipated in the form of waste heat which not only…
Efficient conversion of photons to electrical energy has a wide variety of applications including imaging, energy harvesting, and infrared detection. The coupling of electromagnetic radiation to free electron oscillations at a metal…
Thermophotovoltaic (TPV) converters are capable of generating electrical energy from infrared radiation emitted by an emitter powered by waste heat or solar energy. Key performance metrics for TPV converters are power output density (POD),…