Related papers: Thermionic-enhanced near-field thermophotovoltaics
The energy transferred via thermal radiation between two surfaces separated by nanometers distances (near-field) can be much larger than the blackbody limit. However, realizing a reconfigurable platform that utilizes this energy exchange…
Using a block of three separated solid elements, a thermal source and drain together with a gate made of an insulator-metal transition material exchanging near-field thermal radiation, we introduce a nanoscale analog of a field-effect…
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…
Thermophotovoltaic systems in principle enable utilization of heat that is usually regarded as wasted energy. However, the wavelength selectivity of the thermal emitter required for high efficiencies is rather difficult to control with…
Near-field thermophotovoltaic systems functioning at 400$\sim$900~K based on graphene-hexagonal-boron-nitride heterostructures and thin-film InSb $p$-$n$ junctions are investigated theoretically. The performances of two near-field systems…
This work presents a detailed analysis of the photothermionic-photovoltaic hybrid solar device. The electrons in this hybrid device gain energy from both the solar photons and thermophotons generated within the device, and hence the device…
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…
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…
Graphene---hexagonal-boron-nitride---InSb near-field structures are designed and optimized to enhance the output power and energy efficiency of the thermophotovoltaic systems working in the temperature range of common industrial waste heat,…
Nanogap thermophotovoltaic (TPV) devices can deliver high power densities even with the medium-temperature heat sources. As such, these devices are very promising for recovering industrial waste heat. So far, the demonstrated nanogap TPVs…
Emitted photons stemming from the radiative recombination of electron-hole pairs carry chemical potential in radiative energy converters. This luminescent effect can substantially alter the local net photogeneration in near-field…
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),…
Finding alternative optoelectronic mechanisms that overcome the limitations of conventional semiconductor devices is paramount for detecting and harvesting low-energy photons. A highly promising approach is to drive a current from the…
In a thermophotonic device used in an energy-harvesting configuration, a hot light-emitting diode (LED) is coupled to a photovoltaic (PV) cell by means of electroluminescent radiation in order to produce electrical power. Using…
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,…
Twisted bilayer two-dimensional electronic systems give rise to many exotic phenomena and unveil a new frontier for the study of quantum materials. In photonics, twisted two-dimensional systems coupled via near-field interactions offer a…
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…
Recent experiments claimed that the enhancement of catalytic reaction rates occurs via the reduction of activation barriers driven by non-equilibrium (``hot'') electrons in plasmonic metal nanoparticles. These experiments place plasmonic…
Efficient generation of charge carriers from a metallic surface is a critical challenge in a wide variety of applications including vacuum microelectronics and photo-electrochemical devices. Replacing semiconductors with vacuum/gas as the…
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…